AUDIO

[Songs in the Night - November 17]
Jesus Christ maketh thee whole. Acts 9:34
OUR text is from Peter's words to Aeneas, the paralytic, whom the apostle found at Lydda and healed. We are not told that he was one of the saints; the presumption, therefore, is that he was not, but that at most he was a friend to some of them, and that thus the apostle's attention was drawn to him. The fact that he had been bedfast, helpless, eight years, testified that the healing was a miracle. Its fame spread abroad, and resulted, we are told, in the drawing of many unto the Lord and to the church. Thus did the Lord establish the church and attract to it those who were in the right attitude of heart, using miracles then, as he now uses other means. Those miracles cannot have lasted much longer than the apostles themselves, the gifts of healing etc., being granted only through the laying on of hands of the apostles—and the twelve had no successors—the heavenly Jerusalem had twelve foundations, and no more, and in them were written the names of the twelve apostles, and no others. Z'02-105 R2987:5 (Hymn 264)