Children of Wisdom or Folly?

Today we will be in Luke 7: 29-34.  Here we see that the ministries of John the Baptist and Jesus were very different in some ways.  Of course they were similar in others ways.  They both preached repentance in light of the coming Kingdom.  But they did so in two very different ways.  Perhaps this is part of why John had doubts when he was in prison.  Either way, Jesus draws on the book of Proverbs as He challenges the people about their response to John’s ministry and His.

The Bible uses a literary device called personification.  It is when you take an abstract concept and speak about it as if it were a person.  Thus in Proverbs 8, Solomon speaks of wisdom as a woman who is a teacher calling out to men to come and learn.  The reason Solomon does this becomes clearer as you look at another woman in Proverbs 7.  This woman is an immoral, seductress who tries to allure men into her bed.  Solomon warns that no matter how much it appeals to your flesh it will lead to death in the end.

Now I know that some get stuck on the way that everything is couched in terms to protect men from immoral women.  The truth is that the opposite is true as well.  Young women are hearing the voice of the immoral man calling to her to join him in sexual immorality.  These opposing voices in life are appealing to two very different parts of our nature.  Immorality appeals to the urges of our flesh, whereas Wisdom appeals to our mind.

In today’s passage Jesus uses this personification of wisdom and takes it one step further.  Those who listen to the voice of immorality or wisdom become children of the same.  They head down a path of learning and growing in immorality or wisdom.  Let’s look into it.

The Response to John & Jesus

Last week Jesus detailed why the people went out to the Jordan River to hear John.  It was because he body proclaimed the Truth as a true prophet of God.  Now Luke steps back from the narrative and points out the responses of those who heard John and Jesus.  Some of them received John and Jesus.  Notice that after Jesus healed and taught then the people “justified God.”  Now if it is God justifying us it means that He is doing something to us that we lack.  But when men “justify” God it is not the same meaning.  God is justified whether or not any men recognize it or declare it.  Thus it takes on the meaning that is closer to recognition.  We don’t make God any more just, but we can publically declare that He is.  Luke ties this public reception of what Jesus had said and done to the fact that they had earlier received John the Baptist by being baptized for repentance.  This makes sense because John was pointing people to Jesus.  Here we see Jesus publically affirming John and the ministry that he did.

It is humorous to see Luke point out that “even tax collectors” were justifying God.  Now tax collectors in those days were in a strange place.  They were definitely well to do and not hurting financially.  But they had to sell out their people in order to be so.  Thus tax collectors have no monetary problems, but have major social problems.  They are outcasts.  There is something about being shut out whether financially or socially that helps us to hear the message of God.  Now this brings up the Pharisees and the Lawyers.  This group despised the tax collectors and saw them as the lowest of the low. 

This sets up a powerful contrast of the average people, and even the lowest, embracing John and Jesus, while the rulers, leaders and well to do rejecting them.  The “unworthy” of society recognize the truth while the “worthy” do not recognize it and even persecute it.  The same is true today.  Do you spend your time trying to fit in with the “worthy” of society?  Or, do you trust God to be the one who declares your true “worth.”

So Luke paints a picture of a large number of people rejoicing and praising God for Jesus.  Yet, in the midst of this is a group that refuses to rejoice and, in fact, despise Jesus.  They didn’t need wisdom from Jesus because they believed they already possessed it.  The first step of wisdom is to recognize that before God your “wisdom” is folly or foolishness.  Even though they had received wisdom from God through Moses, they did not handle it with humility.  Instead in great pride they used it to stand against the truth.  Luke ties this to the fact that they refused to be baptized by John.  They rejected John and now they reject Jesus, in the same way that the regular people embraced John and Jesus.  Now this is an important point because Jesus is moving to make a point about the thinking that the Pharisees and Lawyers used to reject Him.

The Folly of Their Thinking

Now ultimately, many of those who were praising Jesus now, would turn away from Him when He chooses to go to the cross.  There is something about God choosing suffering that causes mankind to shrink back in horror and disgust.  Thus Jesus employs another metaphor from their everyday life.  “To what shall I compare this generation?”  This picture that Jesus describes is one the people would have been very family with.  Going to the marketplace is a large part of their lives.  They all could relate to being children with their parents at the marketplace, and then later being the parents bringing their children with them to the market place.  Kids grow tired of adult things quickly.  Thus the kids would gather together and play games while the adults did the shopping.  Now it is clear that in those days it was common for the kids to play imaginary games in which they would act out funerals or festivals.  The key to this is that the kids are playing imaginary games while the parents are involved in reality.

This leads us to his first point.  The kids in the story encounter an adult and want Him to join in their imaginary games.  Now though an adult might do this for a short time out of love for the kids, the adult must refuse to play all the time.  They have real things to deal with.  The kids here are those who rejected John and Jesus.  They expected God to do what they wanted.  However, John and Jesus (like adults) refused to play along with their imaginary solutions.  Jesus came to do adult work, not play imaginary games with us.  Do we do this at all today?  Do we as a generation, like little kids, demand that God, who is the “adult,” play with us in our imaginary world and solutions?  Do we demand that God do what we think He should rather than recognizing who He is and stop playing?  God is no dog to jump through the hoops that we would put before Him.  It is we who should humble ourselves and come to the teacher to learn, not the other way around.

The next problem was that their judgments were biased in their own favor.  Jesus points this out by noting the big difference between Him and John.  John was a recluse who was the epitome of self-denial.  When he did come out of the wilderness to interact with people, he was still isolated from the people.  Rather than joining in with them in life, he challenged them to change.  On the other side, Jesus was always around people, eating and drinking with them in their homes.  Now keep in mind that both are from God and speak the Truth.  But, their methods are very different.  The Pharisees and Lawyers rejected John because he was so detached from them and their ways that they claimed he was demon possessed.  Look at him with his wild hair, feeding off the land, out in the wilderness.  He must be possessed.  Of course, John wasn’t demon possessed.  He spoke clearly, intelligibly, didn’t cut himself, or attack people.  Their judgments were biased in favor of the outcome they wanted.  John’s message was unappealing to them and so they judged his life to be of the devil.  However, Jesus did not come this way.  He was the opposite.  He had no problem associating with people and eating with them in their homes.  Yet, he also associated with sinners.  Again the Pharisees reasoned that he must be a glutton, drunkard, and a friend of sinners (aka “a sinner too”).  Now God has sent them both with two very different attempts to draw them to His wisdom and they reject both.  In fact they had been doing this for centuries.  When you look at the lives of the prophets, you see that they represented many different varied lives.  But they all had the same message for the people.  God in His mercy has sent many people with various personalities and lives.  But they all contain the same message.  If we are so set in our ways and thinking that nothing God says or does can get through to us, then we are in the most pitiful circumstances.

Jesus ends with the statement, “Wisdom is justified by all her children.”  Here we have the same issue as before.  Wisdom is not made to be right by us.  Rather the fact that it has people who respond to it and embrace it like a little child, justifies it against those who reject it.  Which do you choose:  the seductive allure of immorality, or the promise of Wisdom?  Which do you choose: the joys of the immoral bed or the fruits of a classroom?  Our flesh pulls powerfully towards immorality.  But know this.  If you choose that path you then become a child of it and will only grow to know the depths of it.  And, the depths of it are called death.  No one will be able to tell God that He can’t expect them to believe because of lack of evidence.  He will only need to point to the countless millions who did believe.  Wisdom is justified by all her children.  Choose wisdom today!

Wisdom or Folly Audio

The True Jesus: Jesus Teaches About John

Today we will look at Luke 7:24-28.  Jesus had sent a message back to John (who was in prison) telling him to not lose faith.  John clearly was struggling with what he believed should be and what was happening.  After John’s disciples leave to give him the message, Jesus teaches about the greatness of John because it was important for people to understand who he was and how integral he was to God’s plan.  Yet, at the end Jesus gives us a strange twist.  Let’s check it out.

Why Were People Drawn To John

In verse 24 Jesus asks the people why they went out into the barren places to listen to John.  He does so by asking a rhetorical question, of which the answer is obvious.  Did they go out to see a “reed shaken by the wind?”  This word picture is of a person who is easily moved by circumstances and the opinions of man (i.e. the winds of the time).  Though the reed may look substantial, it grows in marshy areas or along rivers, lakes and streams.  Thus it can be easily uprooted.  Clearly, this was not a picture of John the Baptist.  People were drawn to John because he was a sincere, steadfast, passionate, God-pleaser.  John stood strong even against Herod Antipas and his sins because he wanted to please God.

Another way in which this picture of the shaken reed can be understood is to read 1 Kings 14.  In that passage the prophet uses a shaken, bruised reed as a picture of how God would come upon Israel.  He would knock Israel down, and scatter it to the winds.  Thus the bruised reed is a picture of Judgment.  John was clearly a righteous man and not under judgment.  In fact you could say John is himself a dried reed in the hand of God to chastise Israel in order to draw some to repentance.  This was very different from the religious leaders of the day and drew people to him.  John seemed to be authentic and he was.  John’s passionate stand against the sins of Israel from the least to the greatest in the land culminated in his imprisonment and eventual beheading.  This gave people hope that the Messiah truly was about to come.

Next Jesus asks if they went out to John in order to see a man dressed in soft clothing.  This question is pretty much a joke.  Anyone who had seen John would laugh at the idea of him in soft clothing.  John was the ultimate picture of self-denial.  This was in stark contrast with the political and religious leaders of the day.  He is pictured as living in the wilderness on locusts and wild honey (i.e. living off the land), wearing camel hair cloak, and a leather belt.  He didn’t just abstain from luxuries.  He abstained from even the normal pleasures of life.  This again increased his authenticity in the eyes of the people.  John was not seeking to “fleece the sheep” for his own benefit.

The next question in verse 26 begins to hone in on the truth.  Did you go to see a prophet?  Definitely the answer is yes.  John was a true prophet of God.  The people went out to John recognized this about him.  But John was more than a prophet of God.  What the people couldn’t see is that John was the fulfillment of Malachi’s prophecy in Malachi 3.  God had promised to send a Forerunner to the Messiah whose job would be to herald the Messiah’s coming and help people be prepared for Him. 

Even more, Jesus points to John as the greatest of the prophets up to that point.  Does that mean John was greater than Moses and Elijah?  Yes it does.  However, “greater” likely does not point to greater in faithfulness or love of God.  Rather John is greater in function or position.  John ministers in the presence of the Messiah.  He also successfully turns hearts from sin towards the Messiah.  Lastly he gets to witness the beginning of the promised Kingdom of God.  These are things that Moses and Elijah would have loved to have seen.  In this regard, John’s experience parallels that of Moses.  Just like Moses teaches the people to follow God and leads them to the Promised Land, but doesn’t get to go in, so John the Baptist teaches and leads the people to Jesus and His promised Kingdom.  However, John is to be executed and not allowed to enter the coming Church.  He could have been an excellent Apostle.  However, it was not the calling God had given him.  This of course leads us to the issue of the Kingdom of God.  Wasn’t Israel already a part of the Kingdom of God?  How could it be coming or at hand?

The Kingdom of God

If you study the Scriptures, you will see that Israel is part of God’s Kingdom.  Many places He is called their King.  However, both in experience and through the prophets, the people were promised a greater stage of that Kingdom.  Not a Kingdom ruled by men who variously fell short of God’s righteousness, but by God’s Anointed (Christ) who would perfectly rule the people and expand the Kingdom over the whole earth.  When Jesus came He initiated this Kingdom of God.  Since then Christians have been the citizens of the Kingdom of Jesus and Jesus is the King.  This rule in the hearts of men has gone to the ends of the earth.  However, this is not the completion of all promised.  It is now a natural people ruled by a spiritual kingdom that does not have an earthly headquarters, nor an earthly ruler.  But that is coming.  Thus the Kingdom of God was both present and future.

John was preparing people’s hearts to enter into this new stage of the kingdom of God.  He called them to repentance and spiritual cleansing, and to faith in Jesus.  They would be able to hear and respond to the Messiah’s call, “Come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”  The Good News of the Work of Jesus is that everyone is invited to join the Kingdom that had come about by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  Thus John has a tremendously glorious position within the Kingdom of God.

Yet, Jesus strangely says that those who are the least in the coming kingdom of God will be greater than John.  This amazing point begs the question of how the least in the Church can be greater than John.  Our experience would beg to differ with Christ.  But again this is not about devotion or faithfulness.  It is about position.  Let’s look at the ways those who entered the Kingdom of Christ received something greater.

First, we have a greater knowledge of Christ than John.  John understood better than all up to him who the Messiah was.  But he didn’t know everything.  That is why we see him doubting in prison.  Jesus encouraged John, but He shared His teachings and prophecies with His disciples.  John did not have this.  The Holy Spirit even led the Apostles into further truth than Christ taught them because they weren’t ready for it yet.  See John 16:12.

Second, we have a greater position before God.  John participates in the transition, but never gets to participate in the life and joy of the Church.  Like I said earlier, he is like Moses in this way.  Longing to enter in and yet having to be content with the position and calling God has given you.  John the Baptist still lived under the Tutor of the Law of Moses.  However, we have become the adult sons and daughters of God, no longer under the teacher.  We are able to work alongside the Father in the freedom of love rather than under the restriction of Law.

Lastly, our privileges are greater than John’s.  John did have the Spirit in His life, but he never got to see the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon all God’s people.  He didn’t get to see that in operation within the Church community.  We have been given spiritual gifts that John did not get to see.  Even the fellowship of believers within a community was foreign to all that John experienced (an outcast living in the desert).  I could go on but I think you can see the point I am making.

Let me close this by saying that God isn’t done yet.  You have been given something in Christ that the prophets of the Old Testament would have longed to have seen and experienced.  You are blessed beyond belief.  What a privilege we have been given by God.  Am I thankful?  Do I treat my Christianity lightly?  Or, do I despise it and think it is worthless?  I am amazed when I see videos of people witnessing on the streets of our cities and they run into people who say they are Christians, but they don’t live any different from the world.  They are enamored with the world over the top of Jesus and His kingdom.  The apostle John warned us not to love the world or the things of the world because they are all passing away.  Do you know that the kingdom of God is on the verge of an even greater stage?  In fact it could be said that in the millennial kingdom the least will be greater than the greatest of the Church today.  God is not done yet.  He will complete all that He said he would.  Why throw all that away for some trinkets that are going to be destroyed tomorrow?  Are you living far below your position and privileges in Christ?  Maybe we need to hear John’s words one more time.  Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand!

Jesus Teaches about John Audio

The True Jesus: Of Faith and Doubt

In today’s passage, Luke 7:19-23, we get our last glimpse of John the Baptist before Herod Antipas has him executed.  John the Baptist represents the ultimate, faithful prophet.  He is a picture of great faithfulness to the Lord.  Yet, whether it is Elijah in the wilderness or John the Baptist in prison, we see that they were only men doing their best to do the right thing in trying situations.  They had to battle with doubts just like you and me.

It is an error to think that those who are faithful never have doubts, or that those who are courageous never have fears.  So if you have fears and doubts, take heart today.  It doesn’t mean you can’t exercise great faith and courage.  In fact, it is the presence of fears and doubts that makes faith and courage remarkable.

The Circumstances of John

Back in Luke 3:20 we were told that Herod had imprisoned John.  So let’s look at the background to this.  The day to day history of the Herods is equal to any soap opera today.  Herod the Great, who ruled when Jesus was born, died a few years later while he was still a toddler.  Rome then divided the kingdom among Herod’s sons.  Two of them were Herod Antipas and Herod Philip.  Herod Antipas ruled over the area on the east side of the Jordan and around the Sea of Galilee.  Over the course of time, Herod Antipas fell in love with Philips wife, Herodias.  She wanted him as well.  So, Antipas divorced his wife and married Herodias.  On top of all of this Herodias is actually their niece.  This gives you an insight into the lack of morals within these royal families.  John the Baptist had publically rebuked Herod Antipas for these actions.  It was then that he had John imprisoned, reasoning that John had a lot of followers and they might be inclined to revolt.

However, Herod was afraid to kill him because he saw John as a righteous prophet.  Furthermore, he would have John brought out of prison before him, from time to time, because he liked to listen to John’s preaching.  However, Antipas liked his preaching more like someone likes a song.  It sounds lovely, but he is not going to change his life because of it.  He was a man ruled by passions and filled with many conflicting emotions.  It is in this environment that we read John sending two of his disciples to Jesus.

The Questions of John

Most likely John was held in prison up to a year.  So it is understandable that he began to question his understanding about who Jesus was.  John’s questions are twofold.  Is Jesus the Messiah?  Or, is he just another forerunner like John?  Now John had already publically testified on numerous occasions that Jesus was the Messiah, the coming one.  However, he now wonders if perhaps he was mistaken.  In the moment when Jesus was being baptized it was very clear to John who he was.  But, given time in a prison he began to lose his clarity.

We might also point out that John doubts Jesus, not God’s promise to send a Messiah.  Just like the disciples were confounded by what Jesus did and allowed to happen, so John is perplexed.  Surely Jesus would have taken his place as king of Israel by now.  This central issue of who Jesus is has continued to be the main thing to this very day.  However, it does require a foundational belief that God has made promises that He will keep.  To a world that believes in a creator we must convince them that Jesus is the Son of God sent to perform salvation.  But to a world that doesn’t believe in any supernatural Creator, we must convince them that such a God exists.  Jesus is the key to this.

Part of the problem here is that John most likely didn’t foresee ending up in prison.  Remember that while John is in prison Jesus is teaching that He came to set the captives free. It is here that we see the importance of the spiritual message behind what Jesus was saying.  If Jesus meant he came to empty the prisons of the Herods then he failed miserably.  Clearly Jesus was speaking spiritually.  Faith is always tried when the physical situation seems more important to us than the spiritual.  John is in the furnace.

In these moments discouragement sets in.  Physical pains and difficulties over a long period of time wear us down and deflate our courage.  Of course, John doesn’t ultimately lose faith.  But his faith was severely tried.  When he had doubts he sought answers from Jesus and this is exactly what we must do in our times of doubt.  It is difficult to be under a cloud of discouragement.  It would be easy to condemn those who are discouraged for not having enough faith.  I would challenge you that discouragement is part of the process of purifying faith.  It is a necessary opponent that we must battle.  Instead of condemning discouragement, we need to be like Barnabas was.  Saul who was a new Christian was not trusted by most of the Christians.  In this discouraging time Barnabas came along side of him and promoted him to the brothers.  Love encourages people to turn to the Truth.  And that is exactly what John the Baptist did.  He sought an answer from Jesus.

The Answer Of Jesus

As John’s disciples arrive with the questions, they witness a scene in which Jesus is healing and preaching.  At some point when there is a break they are able to ask their question.

Jesus first says, “Go tell John all the things you have seen and heard.”   The blind were seeing, the lame walking, lepers cleansed, deaf hearing, and the dead raised.  Notice that in each of these a deficiency is met with the sufficiency of Jesus.  In fact all of these are pictures of spiritual problems.  We can be spiritually blind, lame, blighted with a deteriorating disease, deaf, and even dead.  Jesus is the answer to them all.  This is exactly what the Messiah was supposed to do.

At the end of this part he also says to tell John that the Gospel is preached to the poor.  The Gospel is the good news that they can have a part in the Kingdom of God through Jesus.  In light of the way John describes the earlier healings we could say that the poor receive the riches of heaven, Jesus himself.  This is intended to reach the heart of John the Baptist.  In his heart he knew that the Jews had mangled the Truth of God and instead of healing the hurting were making things worse.  Jesus was changing all of that.  Just like the Scriptures said that the Messiah would.

Lastly, Jesus adds a powerful statement, “Blessed are those who do not stumble because of me.”  Now remember this is intended to be an encouragement to John and to us.  He is reminding John of the stumbling stone of Isaiah 8 and 28.  In one place Isaiah says that God is going to take a stone that the builders reject and make it the capstone.  Notice the builders stumble in their analysis of God’s Rock.  In the other place we are told specifically that the Messiah would be a stumbling stone.  “He will be a sanctuary, but a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense to both the houses of Israel, as a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.  And many among them shall stumble; they shall fall and be broken, be snared and taken.” Isaiah 8:14-15.  Paul notes this in Romans 9 when he says that many in Israel stumbled over the Messiah because they sought righteousness by their own works of the Law, rather than throwing themselves by faith upon the mercy of God.  They trusted themselves over God.

Do you have doubts and fears?  Then hear the Truth about Jesus.  All the physical miracles He did point to spiritual issues that only He can heal.  Take hope in the reality of those things that Jesus has done.  He will do what God has said He will.  Don’t lose faith.  Remember that God is concerned about those who are ground down in this life and offers the riches of heaven to all who will respond.  You are a part of that group.  Don’t give up.  Lastly, you will be blessed if you don’t stumble over Jesus.  Many people today stumble over Jesus.  They do so by either totally rejecting him, or remaking him into an image that they can be comfortable with.  Both lead to destruction and cannot help.  Save yourself from this wicked generation, believe on the Lord Jesus, and be saved from the coming judgment.  And, like John, even if you are to lose your head for your faith in Jesus continue to go to Him for the answers you need to continue in faith.  Faithful to the end.

Faith and Doubt audio

The True Jesus: Authority Over Death

Last week we saw how Jesus had authority over a terminal sickness.  The next section in Luke 7:11-17, shows that even if someone dies, Jesus still has authority over even death.

The story takes place about 12 miles up into the hills from the Sea of Galilee near Nazareth at the city of Nain.  Jesus and his disciples had left Capernaum and walked up to this city.  They were also followed by a large crowd that wanted to see what Jesus would do and hear what He would teach.

His Authority Over Death

As Jesus, disciples, and crowd approach the town of Nain, they are met by a funeral procession coming out of the city.  This tragic scene would be sad enough.  But, we are told that the situation gets worse.  The woman was a widow.  So she had already dealt with a tragedy of losing her husband.  Now she has the increased tragedy of losing her son and having to bury him.  Yet, even worse, this was her only son.  That means the woman would also be worrying about how she is going to live.  Who will take care of her?  Like Naomi in the book of Ruth, she has suffered great bitterness and yet we do not know if this woman has a Ruth like Naomi did.

It is in this moment that we are told that Jesus had compassion on the woman.  Now compassion is sometimes referring to the act of helping someone without regard to the emotions behind it.  But, here it is describing an inner emotion of love and pity that Jesus feels towards her.  This emotion leads Him to decide to do an act of compassion.  Jesus was not an unfeeling being that mysteriously did miracles.  Rather, he had compassion upon those who were bound by sin and sickness.  You might recall that when Jesus hears that Lazarus, His friend, had died that He wept.  So Jesus tells the woman to not weep.  Weeping and grieving is normal and God is not against it.   However, Jesus is about to turn her weeping into Joy.  He is giving her hope.  When the miracle worker says don’t cry, you begin to hope that He means He is going to help you.

Next Jesus steps up to the open coffin and simply speaks to the dead corpse.  This resurrection scene demonstrates the power of Jesus.  He does not require great build up and multiple attempts.  When you contrast this simple action to Elisha’s resurrection of the young boy in 2 Kings 4, you see the tremendous command that Jesus has over death.  This is not to put down Elisha, but rather to lift up the Truth about Jesus.  Jesus simply commands the young man to rise up.  This amazing power of speaking a word and flesh coming to life is parallel with God in the creation of Adam.  There he forms the man and then breathes life into the form.  The words of Jesus cause life to enter this dead body and further more heals the original problem that led to a death in the first place.  Thus God not only has the power to create, but also to recreate. 

Like the resurrection of Lazarus, this young man is brought back to life in a mortal body.  He is not immortal like Jesus was after his resurrection, but rather, restored to normal life.  He will eventually grow old and die of something else and at that point Jesus won’t be there.  The power of this story is not the hope that we can escape death if we have enough faith.  God does not show up in miraculous power in most of the sorrows of our life.  Even this woman could wonder where Jesus was when her husband died.  Yet, we see here that despite all of that Jesus does care.  God does care about the sorrow of mankind.  Part of the work of Jesus is to give man the evidence he needs to believe that God will overcome all those sorrows, even death.

In John 11 Jesus promises that a greater day of Resurrection is coming on the Last Day of this Age.  This is a day when Christ will command all the righteous to be raised from the dead and have eternal, spiritual bodies.  They are called spiritual because they are created by the Spirit of God.  But don’t be confused.  They are material bodies.

The apostles also pointed to this great promise as the Great Hope of all believers:  that we will be resurrected by Christ on the last day.  It is what makes all our sacrifices and difficulties in this life bearable.  Paul gives the most description of this event in 1 Corinthians 15 if you want to understand it more.  Let me just list some of these apostolic encouragements.  “But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope.  For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.”  1 Thessalonians 4:13-14.  “For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead.  For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.” 1 Corinthians 15:21-22. 

The People Are Amazed

There is a part of us all that longs to have been there or to see something as dramatic as this.  But the reality is that our faith is not made better or worse for having not seen it.  Many in the Bible who saw the miraculous went on to not believe God.  Thus God gives us evidence, but don’t fool yourself that it isn’t real just because you didn’t see it.

It says that fear came upon them.  In general this is a fear of realizing that this is no mere man.  Who is he?  What is he?  Yet, it also points to a fear of the Lord because the people began to give the glory and honor of this event to God.  His power and ability was so far beyond them that they were humbled in reverence and respect.  This was not a man to be trifled with.

They glorified God.  To whom do we give glory of all the amazing things that are happening in our day?  Don’t we glorify ourselves?  Even our technology is made possible by the glories of God’s creative genius.  Yet, we do not praise Him for His wisdom.  Instead we laugh at such quaint notions as a God, and praise ourselves.  The generation that doesn’t stand in awe at the greatness of God expressed through His creation, brings judgment upon itself.

They also declared Jesus a true prophet and a visitation from God.  Prophet is meant here in that most of the prophets did miracles to help the nation believe that what they said was from God.  But the emphasis was on the fact that they spoke for God.  Through this resurrection the people of Nain recognize Jesus as a prophet.  One who is truly sent by God to speak to His people and direct them.  However, we are warned in Scripture not to accept miracles as proof of the Truth.  So how do we know?  First the miraculous gets our attention.  Next we take the teaching of the “prophet” and we compare it to the teachings of the Bible.  If they do not match then we don’t listen to the prophet because they are not from God.  Lastly, if they predict something and it doesn’t come to pass then we know for sure that they are not a true prophet.  Was the teaching of Jesus true to the Old Testament?  The New Testament makes the case that He was the ultimate prophet of God.

Lastly, the “visitation from God” is a reference to the fact that God doesn’t always seem to be active in our life.  From time to time, however, He shows up.  These visitations can be good or bad, it depends on us.  Israel had been suffering under one empire after another and were longing for deliverance from God.  It seemed like He was not showing up.  They longed for a visitation of deliverance.  However, if we are not living right and crucify the deliverer when He shows up, then we are going to have a visitation of judgment.  The good news is that Jesus took the Judgment of God upon Himself so that those who put their faith in Him could avoid it.  That truly is amazing.  The amazing grace of God can be ours by picking up our cross (the things we have to die to) and following Jesus in faith.  God promises us eternal life in glorified bodies, but in His time.  Can you trust Him?  Turn to Jesus today.

Authority Over Death Audio