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The God Who Raises the Dead

Wayne Galloway
12/15/19 - Sunday Morning Worship

The God Who Raises the Dead

Acts 17:22-31

 

Introduction:

 

1.  Athens became the leading city of Ancient Greece in the first millennium BC and its cultural achievements during the 5^th century BC laid the foundations of western civilization.

2.  Athens was the home of literature and art.  It was the philosophical center of the world.  It was the religious center of the world.  It was the university of the world.  It was the city of ideas.  While Rome may have conquered Athens militarily, Athens conquered Rome culturally.

3.  Some of the most important figures of Western cultural and intellectual history lived in Athens:

the dramatists:  Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Euripides and Sophocles, the physician Hippocrates, the philosophers Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Epicurus and Zeno, the historians Herodotus, Thucydides and Xenophon.  Luke describes the Athenians and those visiting there as “spending their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new.”  Paul conversed with Epicurean and Stoic philosophers.

4.  The city has been described as the most religious place in the world.  It offered a home to almost every god that had been invented in the pagan pantheon.  In addition to the many temples and shrines nearly every public building was also a shrine or a temple consecrated to a god.  Paul observed the city full of idols and was provoked by it. 

5.  Perhaps he had visited the Parthenon, the great temple on the Acropolis dedicated to Athena, but everywhere he went there were objects of religious devotion.

6.  Paul was taken into the midst of the Areopagus, the place where the high court of Athens met.  There the Athenians would give consideration to what Paul was teaching.

7.  It was the opportunity of a lifetime.  Paul’s chosen topic:  “The God Who Raises the Dead,” the God that was unknown to the Athenians.

 

Discussion:

 

I.  “He gives life” (v. 25).  God is the source of all life.

 

      A.  He made the world and all things in it.

            1.  God breathed life into the formless and void, and darkness of the earth.

            2.  Every creative activity was designed with life as the objective.

                  a.  Light.

                  b.  Separation of the waters.

                  c.  Seas and dry land with plants yielding seed.

                  d.  Day and night.

                  f.  Waters teeming with living creatures.

                  g.  The earth bringing forth living creatures.

                  h.   God breathed the breath of life into Adam.

                   i.  Placed him in the Garden of Eden with the tree of life.

        B.  For Paul the God of life is different than all the other gods of Athens (24-25).

              1.  He does not dwell in temples made with hands.

              2.  He is not served as though He needed anything.

              3.  He is the source of life.  There is nothing lacking in Him.  Already Paul was bringing the

             Athenians face to face with what for them must have been an intriguing concept:  a God that

             has no needs but gives life.

       C.  But already you and I know there is a problem.  Death. 

             1.  It originates with sin.  With the serpent’s temptation and lie that “You will not die.”

             2.  But God had said, “In the day you eat of it you will surely die.”

             3.  The serpent said, “You surely will not die.”

             4.  But die they did.  Separated from God, separated from the tree of life.  Alive physically

                   but terminal as the repeated “And he died” of Gen. 5 testifies.

             5.  And we have been dying ever since.  The Athenians knew death and we do to.  Like a

                   relentless coonhound it pursues us until we a treed.  No one escapes.  We run

                   thoughtlessly in our youth as if we can escape.  But the longer we run the more we

                    realize the inevitability of being caught.  We run until our hair turns grey, our body is

                    worn and bruised.  We keep running.  Slower now.  The hound is closer.  Relentless.

              6.  It is only reasonable to seek for the source of life for the cure to our situation.  That is

                    Paul’s next point.

 

II.  He is not far from each one of us.  In Him we live and move and exist (v. 28).

 

       A.  He gives life.  He sustains it.  Surely He is the answer to our dilemma.

              1.  He is not like gold or silver, an image formed by the art and thought of man.

              2.  We are His children.   He is not like other gods.

       B.  We see evidence of His willingness to address our dilemma early on.

              1.  Death is countered with the promise of Gen. 3:15.

              2.  His clothing of Adam and Eve indicates concern for them.

              3.  Even their rejection from the Garden allows for restoration rather than continuing death

                    in the Garden.

              4.  While Genesis describes a deteriorating condition God is working toward restoration. 

                    He preserved life in Noah (Gen. 6-7).

              5.  This is what the rest of Scripture reveals.

        C.   Scripture teaches that God has the power of life and death.

               1.  Deut. 32:39 says, “See now that I, I am He, and there is no god besides Me; it is I who put

                     to death and give life.”

               2.  This raises the issue of “Why death in the first place?”  I have learned that I am better at

                     address what is happening than I am why it is happening.  I don’t know all the “whys”!

                     a.  Scripture says that death is the consequence of sin.

                     b.  It stems from God’s holy nature.  Illustration of paper in oven . . .   God cannot

                          peacefully coexist with sin.  His nature consumes it.

                     c.  Many would diminish the wrath of God against sin, but it is part of the reality and

                          death is testimony to it. 

                     d.  Evidenced in the sacrifices of the O.T.

                     e.  Evidenced in the cross of the N.T.  There the justice of God against sin executed in the

                          shame, humiliation and death of Jesus.

                      f.  If it were not for the justice of God there would be no need for deliverance from

                           death. 

                      g.  God both puts to death and gives life.

            D.  This is why the need for repentance (30).

            1.  He will judge the world.

            2.  Something about the Messianic kingdom that is often minimized is that it is a kingdom

                 that involves judgment.

            3.  John preached “He who is coming after me is mightier than I; He will baptize you with the

                 Holy Spirit and fire.  His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His

                 threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff

                 with unquenchable fire” (Matt. 3:11-13).

           4.  But we are not to despair.

 

III.  God raises from the dead (31).

 

        A.  This proves judgment. 

              1.  There is consequence to sin.  Jesus died for sins (Isa. 53:8:  “He was cut off out of the

                    land of the living for the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due.”).

              2.   The wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23).

       B.  God overcomes death.

             1.  He has that power (Matt. 22:29).  He gives life to the dead (Rom. 4:17).

             2.  He raised Jesus from the dead.

             3.  He raises us.

 

IV.  Implications.

 

       A.  No trust in self, but in Him (2 Cor. 1:9).

       B.   Gives meaning to baptism (Rom. 6; Col. 2:12; 1 Pet. 3:21).

       C.   It means that I can give my life into His control (2 Cor. 1:9). 

       D.  It means that we are weak, yet find strength in Him (2 Cor. 13:4b).

       E.  It means that we can endure difficulties with His strength (2 Cor. 12:9-10).

       F.  It means living life for the will of God (1 Pet. 4:1-6).

       G.  It means confident expectation (Phil. 3:20-21).

 

Conclusion:

 

1.  You see why the resurrection is a matter of first importance.

2.  If there is no resurrection there is no hope.

3.  We are still in our sins.

4.  Death is victorious.