| Devotional Hours with the Bible |
Chapter 13 |
Page 5 |
These men were chosen not merely to official place, but for service — “to preach, and to have authority to heal sicknesses.” This authority was given to test their commission. When Moses went to the people and to Pharaoh as God’s messenger, and when they demanded evidence that God had sent him, he was to work certain signs in their presence to prove his claim. So the apostles had power given to them to perform works of wonder as their credentials. Besides, those works of mercy which they wrought were examples of what the gospel should do wherever it goes. We say there are no miracles now. Is this true? Are no sick people healed now? Are no evil spirits cast out? Are no blind eyes opened, no deaf ears unstopped, no lame made to walk, no dead raised? If miracles are not produced in the physical realm, they surely are in the spiritual. Eyes are opened to see God and heavenly things. Ears are opened to hear the voice of the Spirit. Fevers of passion are cured. Sicknesses of soul are healed. The evil spirits of greed, lust, selfishness are cast out. These are the credentials of all teaching and preaching. Power is given yet to Christ’s ministers and to all His disciples — power to heal the sick and cast out demons.
One of the men chosen was known as Simon, but Jesus gave him a surname — Peter. These two names are suggestive. “Simon” shows the rude fisherman of Galilee, with all his rashness, his ignorance, his imperfection; “Peter” shows the apostle of the Acts and the Epistles; the rock firm and secure; the man of great power, before whose Spirit-filled eloquence thousands of proud hearts bow, swayed like the trees of the forest before the tempest; the gentle, tender soul whose words fall like a benediction; the noble martyr witnessing to the death for his Lord. Study the two names together to see what grace can do for a man. It is not hard to take roses, lilies, fuchsias, and all the rarest flowers, and with them make forms of exquisite beauty; but to take weeds, dead grasses, dried leaves tramples and torn, and faded flowers and make lovely things out of such materials, is the most severe test of skill. It would not be hard to take an angel and train him into a glorious messenger; but to take such a man as Simon, or Saul, or as John Newton, or as John Bunyan, and make out of him a holy saint and a mighty apostle — that is the test of power. Yet that is what Christ did, and has been doing ever since. He takes the poorest stuff, despised and worthless, outcast of men oftentimes, and when He has finished His gracious work we behold a saint whiter than snow.
The sculptor saw an angel in the rough, blackened stone, rejected and thrown away; and when men beheld the stone again, behold — there was the angel, cut from the block! In one of the English cathedrals is a window, the admiration of all beholders, made by a workman from the bits of glass thrown away by the master. So heaven is filling with glorified souls gathered from the despised and rejected of earth. We should never be discouraged by our unworthiness or our many faults. Christ can take us as we are, and in His hands our life shall grow into purity and loveliness until He presents us at last before the throne faultless and perfect. There is only one thing that needs to concern us — we must make sure that we are in Christ’s school, that we really put ourselves into His hands.
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