Acts 3:16-17 And his name through faith in his name has made this man strong, whom you see and know: yes… Two men are wandering over the mountains in Nevada. They find curious veins running through the rocks One of them studies these veins with the interest of a geologist, and chisels out a few specimens for his cabinet. The other, who is an expert in ores, believes that he has found a silver mine of great richness. When his companion has passed on with his specimens in his pocket, he returns and stakes out a claim. He perfects his title to that claim. He works it, and becomes a millionaire. Now was it the mine that enriched this man or his faith in the mine? Evidently his faith. And so it is the world over. It is not enough to know of a good thing and to be able to grasp it. We must believe in it and take possession of it. There is, of course, no value in faith, if what we believe is worthless, A lunatic, whom we knew years ago, imagined that he was a millionaire. He would take you into his little chamber, and after carefully locking the door, would open drawers full of bits of paper on which he had written figures for various amounts. He would say, "Here are bills and bonds worth millions of dollars." When asked why he did not use them to buy what he needed, he would reply, "No, no, they are too precious." That man's faith was great, but it was baseless. It was like the faith of worldly men in material things. They are heaping up riches that are as worthless for the soul as his bits of paper were for the wants of this life. "Jesus"; — The old Greek orators, when they saw their audiences inattentive and slumbering, had one word with which they would rouse them up to the greatest enthusiasm. In the midst of their orations they would stop and cry out, "Marathon!" and the people's enthusiasm would be unbounded. My hearers, though you may have been borne down with sin, and though trouble, and trial, and temptation may have come upon you, and you feel hardly like looking up, methinks there is one grand, royal, imperial word that ought to rouse your soul to infinite rejoicing, and that word is Jesus. Parallel Verses KJV: And his name through faith in his name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know: yea, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. |
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