“THE CURE FOR DEATH”
ACTS 9:32-43

I. Introduction
From 1966 to 2014 the Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon was broadcast on television stations throughout the nation. During those years the telethon raised over two billion dol-lars ($2,000,000,000) to fight muscular dystrophy and find a cure for it. But today, after all of that time, all that effort, and all that money, there is no cure for the disease.

There’s no cure for diabetes or asthma or arthritis or Parkinson’s disease either. And while they can all be treated or medicated, man hasn’t cured any of them. And it isn’t only the five I’ve just mentioned. There’s no cure for scores of other diseases. We can’t even cure the common cold. Sooner or later we will all succumb to something. No matter how healthy and strong someone may be, their body will eventually wear out. There’s no cure for that either. Even if we find cures for every known disease, there’s one that remains incurable. It’s the ultimate disease – death. Death is incurable! Well, physical death is incurable.

But the Bible speaks of another kind of death – a death that is far worse than the death of the physical body. Scripture calls it the second death. It is called the “second death” because it follows after the death of the body. The Apostle John tells us about it in Revelation.
*Revelation 21:8
8 “But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

This is the death that no Christian will ever experience. Why? In Revelation 2:11 Jesus refers to believers as “overcomers.” He says, “He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death.” And who are the overcomers? The answer is found in 1 John. So back up a few pages with me to 1 John 5.
*1 John 5:4-5
4 For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world – our faith.
5 And who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

So Christians do not need to fear the second death because the second death has nothing to do with Christians. Just so there is no question about that turn back to Revelation 20 where John describes the results of the final judgment of unbelievers at the Great White Throne.
*Revelation 20:14-15
14 And death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.
15 And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

There is no way to escape physical death – the first death. We will all – believers and unbe-lievers alike – pass through it. That’s because there is no cure for it. But there is a way to escape the second death – there is a cure for that. It is called the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is administered by the Great Physician.

Listen, Jesus’ gospel didn’t give you physical life. God gave you that through your parents. But Jesus’ gospel does give you spiritual life. If you’re a Christian it is because God has given you spiritual life through faith in His Son. You can’t get it anywhere else. It is spirit-ual life that Jesus was talking about when He told Nicodemus he needed to be born again.
John 3:3, 6
3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
6 “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

We need to be born to spiritual life, and that requires being born again. Those who are born again will never see the second death. And so it is that the cure for the second death is the second birth. D. L. Moody liked to say, “Born once, die twice; born twice, die once.”

In today’s passage in Acts 9 we’ll be reminded that both sickness and death are vivid illus-trations of the spiritual condition of all of those who are without Christ. Jeremiah 17:9 tells us about the natural condition of the human heart when he says, “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” And in Ephesians 2:1 Paul speaks to each one of us when he says, “…you were dead in your trespasses and sins…”

In Acts 9:32-43 we will see God use the Peter to confront sickness and death. And we will be reminded that neither sickness nor death has any power over the Lord Jesus. When Jesus saves a lost sinner He transforms their heart.
Romans 10:9-10
9 …if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved;
10 for with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

Not only does Jesus transform sinners’ hearts, He also gives them spiritual life, eternal life. When Jesus saves lost sinners they are no longer dead in their sins; they are alive in Christ.
John 5:24
24 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”
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II. Review and Scripture Reading
In Acts 9:1-9 Saul of Tarsus was confronted by Jesus and converted on the road to Damas-cus. Then we watched as his transformation began. Saul would go from an unbeliever – one who hated Jesus, His gospel, and His people – to the Apostle Paul, who would write half of the NT and finally lay down his life for his Lord and Savior. Soon after his conversion he began to preach the gospel. But his preaching caused such a stir that he was forced to flee to Arabia, where he remained for about three years. Then Saul went back to Damascus for a short time before he finally returned to Jerusalem where Barnabas introduced him to the twelve apostles and to the church.

At that point Saul wasn’t short on zeal, but he had a lot to learn about being a shepherd. He needed to learn things like Christian maturity, personal humility, and compassion for others, all of which take some time to cultivate. So the apostles sent him back to his ancestral home in Tarsus where Saul would spend the next 7-10 years growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and being prepared for the ministry that would shake the world.

We’ll not hear from Saul again until near the end of Acts 11. But until then, Saul will fade from the scene and Peter and the twelve apostles will return to center stage.
*Acts 9:31
31 So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace, being built up; and, going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it continued to increase.

And that takes us to this morning’s text.
*Acts 9:32-43 (Please stand with me in honor of reading God’s Word.)
32 Now it came about that as Peter was traveling through all those parts, he came down also to the saints who lived at Lydda (Lod).
33 And there he found a certain man named Aeneas, who had been bedridden eight years, for he was paralyzed.
34 And Peter said to him, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you; arise and make your bed.” And immediately he arose.
35 And all who lived at Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord.
36 Now in Joppa there was a certain disciple named Tabitha (which translated in Greek is called Dorcas); this woman was abounding with deeds of kindness and charity, which she continually did.
37 And it came about at that time that she fell sick and died; and when they had washed her body, they laid it in an upper room.
38 And since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, having heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him, entreating him, “Do not delay to come to us.”
39 And Peter arose and went with them.
39 (cont.) And when he had come, they brought him into the upper room; and all the widows stood beside him weeping, and showing all the tunics and garments that Dorcas used to make while she was with them.
40 But Peter sent them all out and knelt down and prayed, and turning to the body, he said, “Tabitha, arise.” And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter, she sat up.
41 And he gave her his hand and raised her up; and calling the saints and wid-ows, he presented her alive.
42 And it became known all over Joppa, and many believed in the Lord.
43 And it came about that he stayed many days in Joppa with a certain tanner, Simon.
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II. Text
When is this taking place? It has probably been three years since Saul has gone on to his home in Tarsus. By now it is the early to mid ‘40s and twelve to fifteen years have passed since the crucifixion and the birth of the church. The earliest books of the NT have not yet been written, although the Book of James – thought by most scholars to be the earliest of the NT books – would soon appear. But in the meantime, Peter and the other apostles have been personally spreading the gospel to all of Israel.

Here, in the rest of Acts 9, Peter would perform two great miracles. God would use Peter to heal a paralytic, Aeneas, and He would use him to raise Tabitha from the dead. These stun-ning miracles would not be done to dazzle the folks (although they certainly did that). God had something far more important than that in mind. Do you remember what Jeremiah said? “…the heart…is desperately sick…” Do you remember what Paul said? “…you were dead in your trespasses and sins…” God’s use of Peter in performing these miracles would point the way to two rich eternal truths.

First, it is God alone who offers spiritual healing to the desperately sick. Second, it is God alone who gives spiritual life to those who are dead in sin.
*Acts 9:32-35
32 Now it came about that as Peter was traveling through all those parts, he came down also to the saints who lived at Lydda (Lod).
33 And there he found a certain man named Aeneas, who had been bedridden eight years, for he was paralyzed.
34 And Peter said to him, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you; arise and make your bed.” And immediately he arose.
35 And all who lived at Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord.

The expansion of the church out from Jerusalem required Peter and the other apostles to go out and begin ministering in Judea, Galilee, and Samaria.
Lydda is in Judea about thirty miles northwest of Jerusalem on the plain that leads to Joppa and the Mediterranean coast. Lydda was an important city because the roads from Egypt to Syria and from Jerusalem to Joppa both passed through it. So the news of what happened in Lydda didn’t stay in Lydda. (Ben Gurion Airport) On the contrary, it spread out quickly.

The man Peter healed in Lydda (Aeneas) was most likely not a Christian. There are at least two reasons for making this assumption. The first reason is that Luke calls him a “certain man,” not a disciple. The second reason – and the more convincing of the two – is that there are no examples of believers being healed in the gospels. That makes sense if you remember that the heart of the believer has already been healed; it’s no longer “…desperately sick,” is it? This is precisely what Jesus was speaking about when He said, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but (I came to call) sinners (Mark 2:17).”

In Acts 9:33 there is no reason to think that Aeneas will ever walk again. That is, until v. 34 when Peter said, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you…” Aeneas’ was physically healed in an instant. This was no gradual or partial healing. He didn’t have to go to weeks or months of physical therapy to regain his strength and relearn how to walk.

Please hear me on this. Aeneas’ physical healing pictures and is a parallel to our spiritual healing. When Christ saved us we were not gradually or partially justified by faith. Rather, we were instantaneously healed and made spiritually whole. While it’s true that we will spend the rest of our earthly lives growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord (being sanctified), we will never be more justified than we are at the moment of our salvation. That is because there is no such thing as “more justified.” You are justified, or you are not. You are saved, or you are not. Your heart has been spiritually healed, or it has not.

The bottom line is this: You are spiritually alive, or you are spiritually dead. The failure to understand this core truth has led to a wide variety of false teachings about who is saved, how much of the Holy Spirit someone may or may not have, and all sorts of other errors that create classes of Christians that simply do not exist in Scripture. (back to Acts 9:35)

The news of Aeneas’ healing quickly spread from Lydda ten miles up the road to the port city of Joppa (modern Tel Aviv). In v. 35 it says that “…all who lived at Lydda (the city) and Sharon (the surrounding plain) saw him (Aeneas), and they turned to the Lord.” This is a stun-ning statement! Luke is saying that everyone who saw the healed Aeneas believed in Jesus. The verb “turned” is from the Greek “ĕpistrĕphō.” It means to turn completely around, to convert. Not only did the people change their minds, they changed the direction of their lives. In short, those who saw Aeneas came to genuine saving faith.

It is one thing for a skeptic or a cynic to see someone restored to physical health. But it is another thing entirely to see someone resurrected from the dead. Yet why should the resur-rection of the dead shock or surprise us at all?
Do we or do we not believe the God of the Bible? Do we or do we not believe His written Word? When Sarah was thought to be too old to bear a child, God said to Abraham…
Genesis 18:14
14 “Is anything too difficult for the LORD? At the appointed time I will return to you, at this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son.”

When Job finally came to his senses and repented, he said to God…
Job 42:2
2 “I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.”

When Jeremiah questioned buying a tract of land for future generations as the Babylonians were about to overrun it, he said to God…
Jeremiah 32:17
17 “Ah Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm! Nothing is too difficult for You…”

When Zechariah questioned God about that day when Messiah would rule from Jerusalem, God said…
Zechariah 8:6
6 “If it is too difficult in the sight of the remnant of this people in those days, will it also be too difficult in My sight?”

And when Jesus’ disciples questioned him about how sinners could be saved, He said…
Matthew 19:26
26 “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

And so it is with the resurrection of the dead – “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” After the miracle in Lydda, where Aeneas was healed, many came to saving faith. When the word of Aeneas’ healing reached Joppa, the believers there asked Peter to come to them. In Joppa he wouldn’t confront paralysis; he would confront death.
*Acts 9:36-39
36 Now in Joppa there was a certain disciple named Tabitha (which translated in Greek is called Dorcas); this woman was abounding with deeds of kindness and
charity, which she continually did.
37 And it came about at that time that she fell sick and died; and when they had washed her body, they laid it in an upper room.
38 And since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, having heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him, entreating him, “Do not delay to come to us.”
39 And Peter arose and went with them. And when he had come, they brought him into the upper room; and all the widows stood beside him weeping, and showing all the tunics and garments that Dorcas used to make while she was with them.

It is not known for certain how the gospel first came to the port city of Joppa. But many believe that it was brought there by Philip the Evangelist. After his meeting with the Ethio-pian eunuch on the road to Gaza, Acts 8:40 says that Philip went north along the Mediterra-nean coast to Caesarea. That route would have taken him to and through the city of Joppa. But however it was that she heard the gospel, the woman who lived in Joppa named Tabitha in the Hebrew or Dorcas in the Greek, believed it and came to saving faith. By the way, her name (in Hebrew or Greek) means “gazelle.” From that name we can deduce that she was both a graceful and beautiful woman of God. Unlike Aeneas in Lydda we know that Tabitha was a believer because Luke refers to her as a disciple (a follower).

But Tabitha had died and the church at Joppa was already feeling her absence. And no won-der – they would miss her kindness and her charity (v. 36), as well as the clothing she had been making for the poor among them (v. 39). Tabitha was an example of what it is to serve God as a disciple within the body of Christ. Paul defines such service in his letters to the churches in Ephesus and Colossae.
Ephesians 2:10
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Colossians 1:10
10 so that you may walk in an manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God…

These verses describe Tabitha. Some have even compared her to the Proverbs 31 woman.
Proverbs 31:20, 30-31
20 She extends her hand to the poor; and she stretches out her hands to the needy.
30 Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised.
31 Give her the product of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.

This describes the woman that the church at Joppa had lost. In v. 38 we’re told that two men went to Lydda to find Peter and bring him to Joppa. It would have taken at least a full day to get to Lydda, locate Peter, and return to Joppa with him. Consider the time involved here. Tabitha had probably died the day before the men went to find Peter. Her body had already been prepared for burial. Since the law required that a body must be buried within three days of the person’s death, there would have been no time to waste.

When Peter arrived in Joppa he was met by the widows of the church who displayed some of the fruit of Tabitha’s labor and her importance to the church. Acts 9:39 reveals what a blow her loss would be to the body of Christ in Joppa. Here, by the way, is a great example of how the church is to care for its widows.
There’s something else we don’t want to miss here. Many in today’s church say that deny-ing women leadership roles is tantamount to denying talented and gifted women opportuni-ties to minister to the body. That is simply not the case. Tabitha was neither a pastor, nor a teacher, nor an elder. But she was a godly Christian woman whose ministry within the body was so crucial for the well-being of the church that she was both needed and loved by the whole body.

That truth should not be lost on any of us. The women of Lighthouse Bible Church and the ministries they perform in their homes and here at church are vital. Where would we be
*Acts 9:40-41
40 But Peter sent them all out and knelt down and prayed, and turning to the body, he said, “Tabitha, arise.” And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter, she sat up.
41 And he gave her his hand and raised her up; and calling the saints and wid-ows, he presented her alive.

There are two things worth noting in v. 40.
First, Peter was not looking for an audience. He wasn’t intending to “wow” the peo-ple by raising Tabitha in their presence. There would be no display of anything that could later be misconstrued as the power of Peter.
Second, the apostle fell to his knees and prayed. Do you remember what Jesus did just before He raised Lazarus? He prayed! It was only after Jesus had acknowledged His Father that He turned to the tomb and “…cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come forth (John 11:43).’”

So Peter’s priorities are right, aren’t they? None of this is about him, and he knows it well. Luke reports the miracle of raising Tabitha simply and without fanfare or flowery language. She was dead and now she is alive. You might call this a visual parable. Like all parables its purpose is for exposing, illustrating, and teaching a greater truth than Tabitha’s temporary return to physical life. The great spiritual truth here is that although the natural man is dead in his sins, the power of Christ can give life and restore what sin had killed.

Now to be sure, Tabitha had not been resurrected to eternal life any more than Lazarus was back in John 11. Both of them would pass through physical death again. But the grace of God would allow Tabitha to temporarily return to her ministry and continue to bless the believers in the church at Joppa. Yet God had a much larger purpose in mind.
*Acts 9:42-43
42 And it became known all over Joppa, and many believed in the Lord.
43 And it came about that he stayed many days in Joppa with a certain tanner, Simon.
Let me make just a quick comment about v. 43. Peter stayed with a tanner? The Jews held tanners to be among the lowest of the low. Since they dealt with the skins of dead animals, they were said to be ceremonially unclean, and like prostitutes and dung-collectors, they were forbidden to enter the synagogues. But Peter stayed with Simon the tanner. It seems that his old prejudices were already changing. In fact, in Acts 10:34 he will say, “I most certainly know now that God is not one to show partiality.” (back to v. 42)

In v. 42 we see God’s larger purpose for Tabitha’s return to temporary physical life. Just as with the miracle of healing Aeneas in Lydda, so too does the resurrection in Joppa have the effect of bringing many to saving faith in Christ. So based on all of that it should be easy to see why Aeneas was a paralytic and why Tabitha was dead. He was made well and she was made alive, but the reality is those two things were mere incidentals. God’s larger purpose was that many would come to saving faith. What an amazing God we serve!
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IV. Conclusion
Listen carefully, please. When you minister to someone you may think you know what you are accomplishing. But here is a truth that you can take to heart. Your ministry, however small or insignificant it may appear to be, can lead to things that you could never even ima-gine. Turning little into much is what an all-knowing, all-seeing, and all-powerful, and sovereign God regularly does, isn’t it? Of course, it is! Here’s one example – feeding five thousand men with five loaves of bread and two fish. Here’s another…
Matthew 25:23 (Jesus speaking)
23“Well done, good and faithful slave; you were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.”

Do you think for even a moment that while Tabitha labored over a garment she was making for one of the widows in the church that she ever imagined that God would use it, multiply it as only He can, and then see to it that, “…many believed in the Lord”? What are you doing in service to your Lord and Savior? Does it seem like just a little thing? Does it seem like you’re wasting your time? Do not be discouraged or worry that your ministry is too small. The question is, “Is your heart right before God?” It is? You have no idea what He can do with your work for Him. I hope you can take that with you today.

As we close I would ask you to think about what Peter had to offer as his ministry. He had no monetary wealth, no earthly power, and no particular human influence over anybody or anything. But he had the gospel, and with that he had all the power of God. Isn’t that just what you have this morning and every day that God gives you on this earth? You have the gospel – God’s cure for spiritual death, eternal death, the second death. What are you doing with it?

~ Pray ~