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THE CRIPPLE AT LYSTRA

by Charles H. Spurgeon

Scripture: ACTS 14:9-10


The Cripple at Lystra
Charles H. Spurgeon

The same heard Paul speak: who stedfastly beholding him, and perceiving that he had faith to be healed, said with a loud voice, Stand upright on thy feet. And he leaped and walked (Acts 14:9-10).

I have read in your hearing the story of the preaching of Paul and Barnabas in the town of Lystra. The name of Christ was there totally unknown. They were a sort of country people, partly pastoral and partly agricultural, who seem to have been deeply sunken in superstition. At the gates of their city there stood a great temple dedicated to Jupiter, and they appear to have been his zealous votary. Coming down from the mountainside, Paul and Barnabas enter the town, and when a fitting time has come, they stand up in the marketplace, or the street, and begin to talk concerning Jesus, the Son of God, who had come down from heaven, had suffered and died, and had again ascended up on high. The people gather around them. Among the rest a cripple listens with very marked attention.

They preach again. The crowds are still greater, and on one occasion, while Paul is in the middle of a sermon, using his eyes to watch the audience as all preachers should do, and not looking up at the ceiling or at the gallery-front as some preachers are wont to do, he marks this cripple, fixes his eyes upon him, and looks earnestly in his face. Either by the exercise of his judgment or by the promptings of revelation, the apostle gathers that this man has faith-faith to be healed. In order to attract the attention of the people, to glorify the name of Christ, to publish more widely His glorious fame, and to make the miracle well known, Paul stops the sermon and with a loud voice cries, "Stand upright on thy feet!" The cripple leaps and praises God. The population are all amazed, and knowing that there was a tradition that Jupiter and Mercury had once appeared in that very town, a tradition preserved in the Metamorphoses of Ovid to the present day, t ...

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