Acts 9:32-43: Joy in Judea

Well, good morning.

I would invite you to take your Bibles and open them to Acts chapter 9.

Acts chapter 9.

A few weeks ago I posted, I think it was just a couple weeks ago, I

posted on Facebook an amazing story.

Some hunting dogs, a whole pack of them, I think it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 50,

were chasing after some animal that ran into a lake.

And what do you suppose those dogs did?

They went right in after them.

The animal escaped and the dogs were stuck out there in the middle of the lake.

And it just so happened that a couple guys in a boat

were going by.

And they said, wow, tough break.

And just, no, no, they stopped.

They stopped and they picked up as many dogs as they could carry and they took them back to shore.

Then they went back out and they got the last one just as he

was going under for the last time.

He wasn't gonna make it.

And some people read that story or saw that story and thought, it's a miracle.

Was it a miracle?

No.

That's what we call providence.

It's the normal operation of God where some things just so happen to take place.

We often hear that word miracle just kind of thrown around.

Well, last week I received an email from an unbeliever and asking me what I thought about the recently

found manuscript of the infancy gospel of Jesus,

or of Thomas, sorry.

What do you think about that?

Well, let me just give you what one expert said, Michael Kruger.

He said, the infancy gospel is a flamboyant and entertaining account of

Jesus as a little child growing up in his hometown.

In other words, this precedes anything, any record we have of Jesus.

I mean, we have his birth record, and then we have, you know, when he's like 12, and there's nothing

in between.

So, writers like to fill in gaps, so this fills in that

gap, allegedly.

He goes on, he says, as might be expected, one doesn't have to wait for Jesus to grow up to see

signs that he is God's son.

The boy Jesus restores a man's foot after it was injured by an ax.

He carries water in his cloak after his jug broke.

He expands a piece of wood to help his carpenter father.

He jumps off a rooftop without being hurt.

Don't try this at home, kids.

He plants a single grain of wheat that produces 100 bushels,

and he even raises people from the dead.

Kruger goes on, despite these miraculous deeds, however, the wunderkind, or

wunderkind, Jesus isn't a net benefit to his hometown.

For much of the infancy gospel, he proves to be, listen, a petulant and volatile child,

terrorizing the villagers with his fits of rage.

Now, this night might sound like some kids that you know, or that I know, but it

doesn't sound like Jesus.

Kruger goes on, at one point another child irritates Jesus by splashing a branch in pools

of water.

Jesus screams at him, you unrighteous, irreverent

fool, what did the pools of water do to harm you?

See, you also will be withered like a tree, and you will never bear leaves or fruits.

Then the child is withered and killed on the spot.

I mean, this sounds more like some comic book version of like Lex

Luthor, you know, some evil, powerful genius.

I mean, imagine the power of God without the goodness

of God, without the kindness of God, and that's what you have here in this

story.

In another story, Kruger goes on, a child accidentally bumps into the boy Jesus as he walks through the village.

Aggravated, Jesus immediately kills him too.

So what did I tell my friend?

I didn't send this whole article.

What did I tell him?

I said my answer was really basically simple.

This isn't a gospel, it's not written by Thomas, it's not

inspired by the Holy Spirit, and this isn't Jesus.

This is blasphemy.

Jesus didn't run around killing kids.

The genuine Jesus honored his mother and father.

He was kind and gentle, particularly to children, and he never sinned, and guess

what?

Half of those things that I just listed would be sins.

He did miracles, certainly, beginning by turning water into wine.

He healed people.

He raised the dead, and if we understand miracles rightly in the history of

the world, they're rare.

GodQuestions .org says that miracles are extraordinary occurrences that can only

be attributed to the supernatural work of God and demonstrate his involvement in human history.

Miracles provide evidence of God's presence and power in the world and demonstrate his authority on

behalf of his servants.

A miracle may be performed directly by God or through a human agent, which will be important

for our passage this morning.

But why do miracles occur?

Not because of the whims of some petulant child, but because

God ordains them to authenticate a messenger and a message.

In the Bible, miracles are basically constrained or contained in

three specific eras.

Moses and Joshua, Elijah and Elisha, and Jesus and

the Apostles.

And if we added all the years up, we'd be looking at less than 100 years.

Now, are there exceptions to those miracles?

Yes, but they're few and far between.

This morning, we're going to study two miracles, and they are not random occurrences.

These people didn't get lucky.

They're not the work of a man, not of Peter, but part of the sovereign plan of our

triune God to build his church.

Okay, now that we've had our intro, Acts chapter 9, verses 32 to

43.

Now as Peter went here there among them all, he came

down also to the saints who lived at Lydda.

There he found a man named Anais, bedridden for eight years, who was paralyzed.

And Peter said to him, Anais, Jesus Christ heals you.

Rise and make your bed.

And immediately he rose.

And all the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord.

Now there was in Joppa a disciple named Tabitha, which translated means Dorcas.

She was full of good works and acts of charity.

In those days she became ill and died, and when they washed her, they laid her in

an upper room.

Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, hearing that Peter was there, sent two men

to him, urging him, please come to us without delay.

So Peter rose and went with them.

And when he arrived, they took him to the upper room.

All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other garments that Dorcas made while

she was with them.

But Peter put them all outside and knelt down and prayed.

And turning to the body, he said, Tabitha, arise.

And she opened her eyes.

And when she saw Peter, she sat up.

And he gave her his hand and raised her up.

Then calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive.

And it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord.

And he stayed in Joppa for many days with one Simon, a tanner.

Now last week we finished the dramatic salvation of Saul,

who will soon, I believe a couple chapters from now, be known as Paul, the apostle to the

Gentiles.

He went to Damascus with the authority of the Jewish religious leaders to arrest Christians

and bring them back to Jerusalem for trial.

But just as Saul arrived outside of Damascus, he was blinded by a miraculous visitation by

Jesus himself, one which Saul's companions, his traveling party,

could not see.

They could only tell that there was a voice speaking.

Saul is blinded, and then he's helped into Damascus and stays in the house of a man named

Judas.

The Lord then appears to a man named Ananias.

Jesus tells Ananias that Saul has been given a vision that he, Ananias, will lay

hands on him and restore his sight.

If you recall, Ananias is like, wait a second, I've heard about this Saul.

I don't want anything to do with that.

But the Lord insists and he goes.

After Saul receives his sight, he is baptized and begins preaching the gospel in Damascus,

eventually needing the help of some converts to escape the threat of death.

That dramatic escape was after he spent three years in Arabia.

And then he goes to Jerusalem, where he was treated with the same skepticism of

Ananias until Barnabas vouched for him.

And after 15 days in Jerusalem, the death threats began in Jerusalem, so he

again leaves with the help of believers, ending up in his birthplace of Tarsus.

And that's where our story left off.

And Luke is now going to focus the shift, or shift the focus, of the narrative to Peter.

And this morning we will see two miracles performed by the resurrected and ascended Lord Jesus

Christ.

Why?

Well, as with the original audience, these acts of the Lord

Jesus might cause you to trust Him wholly for salvation.

If you don't know Him today, you're going to hear about this powerful Jesus and think, I should

trust Him.

I should believe in Him.

We're going to see Jesus heal or raise a dead woman back to

life.

No one else could do that.

People say they can do it, but no one has done it.

And that is why the Apostle Peter goes not as the healer,

not as the raiser of the dead, but as a conduit, as an agent,

as a representative of the Lord Jesus Christ for these mighty works.

First we see, first miracle is helpless Anais.

Peter, we're told, is kind of an itinerant preacher traveling around the area.

Look at verse 32.

Now, as Peter went here and there among them all, he came down also to the saints who lived at

Lydda.

Now, how did there get to be saints at Lydda?

Why were there saints, in fact, in this whole area of Sharon?

We don't know, but some scholars say, and it seems reasonable to think, if we just go back a

little bit in this narrative, back to the baptism of the Ethiopian

eunuch in Acts chapter 8, verse 39.

And when they, the Ethiopian eunuch and Philip, came up out of the water, the

Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way

rejoicing.

But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he passed through, he preached the gospel

to all the towns until he came to Caesarea, just working his way up through this

entire area, preaching the gospel.

And it seems like it took with some people.

Azotus, also known as Ashdod during the era of the Philistines.

This whole area, the coastal area of Israel, is among the most fertile

farmland in the region.

It's also known, as I said earlier, the Sharon plain, the plain of Sharon.

And Peter is visiting various churches, various groups of believers in the area.

And if we just look back at verse 31, so the church throughout all Judea and Galilee

and Samaria had peace, and was being built up.

And just on that basis alone, well, and we see at the end of the verse there, it says the church multiplied.

So Peter's going through this area of Judea, this area in

Sharon, and he comes to the believers at Lydda, with what seems in every kind of

way to be a routine kind of pastoral visit.

Maybe he's preaching, visiting the saints, encouraging the saints.

Seems entirely routine until it wasn't.

Lydda is on the road to Joppa.

Joppa's up on the coast.

It's a little, I guess you'd say, east by northeast

from Jerusalem.

And Joppa is probably about halfway between the two.

And so he's walking from Jerusalem, and he's just kind of winding his way around.

He ends up in Lydda.

And we're told in verse 33 that about this man who is paralyzed, there he found a man named

Anais, bedridden for eight years, who was paralyzed.

Now we're not told how Peter finds him.

We're not told how Anais winds up bedridden.

Is he a member of this church in Lydda?

We don't really know.

Seems likely that he's a believer, and I'll kind of spoil the punchline for you.

It seems like he's a believer.

Why?

Because we're never told that he's a believer, and after he gets raised,

we're not told that he believed.

So it seems reasonable to think that this is just a wonderful providential event

in his life, and not a salvific event.

But we're not really told.

What we do know is that he's paralyzed.

He's confined to a bed.

He's bedridden.

He can't go anywhere.

Doesn't have the strength.

Doesn't have the ability to get up and walk.

Now we see that how Christ intercedes for him.

First notice how Peter commands in verse 34.

And Peter said to him, Anais, Jesus Christ heals you.

Rise and make your bed.

Now just think of the confidence you have to have to say something like,

Jesus Christ heals you.

He doesn't say, I heal you.

He doesn't call in a band.

You know, there's no fanfare.

It's just, Jesus Christ heals you.

It reminds me of John 5 verse 8.

Jesus said to him, to this man at Bethesda,

get up, take up your bed, and walk.

I just, boom, just get up.

But this is even more brief.

There's not even a command to walk.

It's just, rise, get up, and make your bed.

Many of us say that to kids all the time, but this is special.

This man is paralyzed.

He can't do anything for himself.

He's been taken care of for eight years.

Peter and John had a similar interaction in Acts chapter 3.

If you recall, the man who was, well, I'll just

read it.

Acts 3 verses 2 to 6.

And a man lame from birth, so longer, I think if I recall correctly, it's like 38

years.

And a man lame from birth was being carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple that is

called the beautiful gate, to ask alms of those entering the temple.

He was just, he begged for a living.

That's what he did, because it was all he could do.

People had compassion for him.

Verse 3, seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked to receive alms.

And Peter directed his gaze at him, locked eyes with him, as did John,

and said, look at us.

And he fixed his attention on them.

In other words, he responds to their command.

Expecting to receive something from them, he wanted money.

But Peter said, I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you in the name of

Jesus Christ, rise up and walk.

Same thing.

In the name of, by the power of, because of the person of

Jesus Christ, all that he is, because he is divine, because he is all

-powerful, because he is able and willing to heal you, get up and walk.

Peter is, as I said before, the agent, the mediator

of the action of Jesus himself.

And when Jesus heals someone, it is complete, it is instantaneous, it is done.

And knowing this, Peter commands Aeneas to make his bed.

Now, if we think about making a bed, we might think about tucking the sheets in, we might think about all kinds of things, but here's the

point.

It's basically a mat.

A mat, and perhaps some bedding, some sheets, and whatnot.

When he tells him to make his bed, he's telling him essentially to roll it up.

Roll it up and move.

What we don't see here, because there are very few details, we don't see him questioning this

man to see if he has enough faith to be healed.

Aeneas doesn't even ask Peter for anything, not for money, not to be healed, nothing.

Aeneas is just the creature.

Jesus Christ is the creator.

Essentially, he is the clay, and Jesus is the divine potter.

Jesus says, be healed.

Jesus says, arise, and he does.

Look at verse 34.

And he, immediately, he rose.

Peter is, by the power of the Lord himself, commanding

Aeneas to rise, and he does.

It's that same, essentially, you know, does Aeneas have a say in the matter?

No.

It's essentially like when Jesus goes to Lazarus and says, Lazarus, come forth, come out of the tomb.

Lazarus comes forth.

In the same way, Peter, as an agent of Jesus Christ, says to Aeneas, rise,

and he does.

Eight years of suffering, eight years of being paralyzed, eight years of being cared

for 24 -7 is over.

And again, there's nothing said about his salvation.

But, we see that God saves.

God uses this miracle for his purposes, and make no mistake, this is

God intervening on the space -time continuum to do what only God can do.

That's what a miracle is.

Miracle as much as I love dogs, and you love them being saved, that's not a miracle.

This is a miracle.

Look at verse 35, "...and all the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him," which this is saying

Aeneas, "...and they turned to the Lord.".

Now, does this mean that every single person living in the area of Lydda and the Sharon plain saw this

man?

They saw Aeneas, and therefore they all believed?

It's likely hyperbolic.

We think it's not every single person.

It just means it's beyond the realm of reasonableness to expect

Luke to give a count, or even an estimate.

There are just so many.

Now, miracles, I mean, a lot of times people say, and you've shown me a miracle, and I'll believe.

Is that true?

And I'll constantly say no.

If we just think about some biblical examples, all of Israel goes through the Red Sea,

right, when it's parted to escape Egypt.

Do they all believe?

Do they all then trust in God?

No.

In fact, they're all too willing to join right in and make that calf.

How many miracles do you suppose that Judas Iscariot saw?

Did he believe?

No.

Can God use miracles to cause people to believe?

Absolutely.

To convince them of Jesus Christ?

Yes.

In this case, many, so many, came to believe that Luke is

not able to count them or give an estimate.

Now, for a moment, let's consider who Peter is preaching about.

Who is this Jesus that he says that he's gone throughout this area preaching, and now, by the

power of Jesus, he is raising Anais from his bed.

He's the second person of the Trinity who took on a human nature.

He didn't stop being God.

He didn't lay aside his exercises of, or his exercise of deity.

He didn't simply become a man powerless,

but he did take that second nature, two natures, one person.

Doesn't stop being eternal God.

He is the eternal Son of God, one person with two natures, a divine nature and

a human nature.

So many errors of theology can be eradicated just by remembering Jesus is divine

and he's human.

How was he tempted?

Human.

God can't be tempted.

How did he do the miracles?

Divine.

Jesus Christ, fully God, but he's also human.

And as a human, he always did what was right and never did what was wrong,

never sinned, and always did righteousness.

That's his work.

So we're talking about his person and his work.

Jesus volunteered to be cruelly crucified by wicked men.

If you recall, he said, I lay down my life, no one takes it from me, so that those who

trust in him might be forgiven for all their sins.

His perfect life, that is to say, his righteousness is credited to all who trust in him.

And he was raised from the dead on the third day.

Crucified, raised on the third day.

Now is it a coincidence, and you already know the answer, is it a coincidence that in our

passage today, both of these folks are commanded to get up?

Absolutely not.

Rising, being raised, Jesus Christ raised on the third day,

and he now intercedes on our behalf.

And on this day, he interceded miraculously for Anais.

So that's miracle number one.

Helpless Anais, Christ intercedes, and then God saves.

Our second miracle is hopeless Tabitha.

She's dead.

Well, who is she, first of all?

Verse 36 tells us, Now there was in Joppa a disciple named Tabitha, which

translated means Dorcas.

She was full of good works and acts of charity.

When he uses a term like now, he is just kind of, again, transitioning.

We don't know how long it was.

Was it immediately after Anais was raised?

Don't know.

Could it have been days, weeks?

We don't know.

But that's not Luke's focus, the timeline.

What he tells us, though, is that about this woman, this disciple,

this believer named Tabitha, whose name means deer or

gazelle.

Could have been a good runner.

Don't really, I mean, this is just a, you know, a name, but interesting name.

But she's known for her good works and her charity.

And poverty was a real problem in the church.

We saw that in Jerusalem, the church in Jerusalem.

Because what happens?

You get saved, and then you're no longer welcome in the synagogues.

And if you're struggling, or particularly if you're a widow, and you're not able to

do work, or to own property, or all the prohibitions against widows, you

were in a bad situation, and you couldn't go to the synagogues for help.

So what did you do?

Well, you've got a small little church there in Joppa.

Tabitha was known for her, as Freyberg says, benevolent activity

toward the poor.

Her donations, her almsgiving, her charitable giving.

This is who she was.

And then Peter is called upon.

In verses 37 and 38, in those days, she became ill and died.

And when they had washed her, they laid her up, or they laid her in an upper room.

Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, hearing that Peter was there, sent two men to him,

urging him, please come to us without delay.

Now, without boring you with all the details, there's a little bit of controversy here.

Some commentators disagree, but let me give you what they all agree on.

Tabitha, right out of her text, died from an illness.

Her body was prepared to some extent.

Says that she was washed.

She was prepared for, to some extent, for burial.

What doesn't happen, though, is they don't wrap her in linens, like she's the final preparation to be

buried.

So she's probably only there for a few hours in this upper room.

Some think that they put her in the upper room rather than bury her, because they'd heard about Peter healing Anais,

and they thought, hey, Peter's right over there.

Let's go get him.

He can raise her from the dead.

Now, that's possible.

Absolutely possible.

And it would be absolutely the case, if the text told us that.

But here's the thing.

He just raised Anais from a sick bed.

He was paralyzed.

But there's no way.

Peter's never raised anybody from the dead before this.

So, they might have some hope that Peter can help, but

they don't know for sure.

They knew the Lord loved Tabitha more than they did, because she was a believer.

Perhaps He, the Lord, would act.

And that's why the church sent, the church at Joppa, sent these two men to plead with Peter to come on and

tend to Tabitha.

And Peter responds, verse 39,.

So Peter rose and went with them.

Again, this kind of reminds me of the whole Lazarus thing, but she's not dead for several days

before Peter gets there.

And when he arrived, they took him to the upper room.

Now, we're talking about probably a three to four hour

walk from Lydda to Joppa.

So, it's three hours to get there and, you know, three hours back.

And so, it's at least six hours.

And when he arrived, they took him to the upper room.

All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other garments that Dorcas made

while she was with them.

You can picture the scene, can't you?

They're weeping, they're crying.

And when we think about Middle Eastern weeping, you know, around here, we'd probably, you know, New England Reserve, we

probably think, you know, a couple sniffles, a couple Kleenexes, you know, wiping away a few tears.

That's not how they weep there.

They're wailing.

I mean, they're screaming.

I mean, if you've ever been around this kind of thing, it'd get, you know, it would wear me out,

you know, wear me out just to have to wail like this.

This is just what they do, what they did.

But the recipients of Tabitha's kindness, of her ministry, they're there and they're showing

these garments, some they may have even worn.

She made this for me, you know, she did this, you know, and they're holding up all these things.

Look at what a wonderful saint she was.

These are the trophies of her kindness, as it were.

And then, as with Anais, Christ intercedes.

Peter prays.

Verse 40, but Peter put them all outside and knelt down

and prayed.

He turns all the widows, everybody who was there, and says, you know, get out of the upper

room.

And he knelt down and prayed.

Bring her back to life in front of the all of them.

Wouldn't that have been spectacular?

But here's the thing, Peter knows that he has no power within himself.

We see the humility here of Peter.

He doesn't command her to rise without appealing first to his high priest,

his intercessor, the one who ever lives to intercede on behalf of his people.

He prays to Christ and Tabitha rises.

Again, verse 40, and turning to the body, he said, Tabitha, arise.

And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter, she sat up.

Again, we don't have a lot of details here.

There's no big back and forth between the two of them after that, you know, welcome back, nothing like that.

She just sees him and sits up.

Now, if you've noticed while I've been talking about Tabitha, I pretty consistently say Tabitha and not

Dorcas.

And there's a reason for that.

Dorcas is her Greek name, Tabitha being her name in

Aramaic.

They both mean gazelle or deer.

But there's a particular reason I chose to stick with Tabitha more so.

It gives us a sweet reminder of Jesus's own words when he raised a leader of the

synagogue's daughter in Mark 5, 41.

Taking her by the hand, he, Jesus, said to her, this little girl who was dead,

Talitha cumi, which means, little girl, I say to you, arise.

That's it in Aramaic.

And Peter would have said essentially the same thing.

One consonant, one letter difference.

He would have said Tabitha instead of Talitha.

Commentator Polehill says this, he says, in the Aramaic churches, they

cherished the story of Tabitha and the similarity would not be missed.

In the footsteps of the master and through the power of his master, Peter worked the same

miracle of resurrection using almost identical words,

raising Tabitha from the dead.

And then Peter presents her, excuse me, to the church

at Joppa.

And he gave her his hand and raised her up.

Then calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive.

He kicked them all out, prayed, raised her from the dead, and then he says,

again, we don't have the exact words, it just says, calling the saints and widows, calling the believers back

in.

Y 'all can come back in now.

Whatever the church in Joppa hoped, can you imagine what they thought

as they walked into the upper room?

What joy and celebration and thanksgiving from those believers in having

Tabitha restored to them by the power of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Do you think that news would have spread?

You know, bad news spreads fast.

Well, good news can spread almost as fast.

Joppa was a large port city on the Mediterranean, and because of this miracle,

many came to believe in Christ.

It says so, verse 42, and it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in

the Lord.

As I said in the beginning, miracles have a purpose.

They are God's extraordinary means of demonstrating the truth of the message

proclaimed by His messengers.

What are the ordinary means of grace?

Ordinary means of grace are preaching, fellowship, reading the Word, those kind of

things, having communion.

Extraordinary means, supernatural means, miraculous means, we don't normally

see those things.

That's why they're miracles.

So should we expect miracles today?

No.

I have a friend who's a professing Christian in California, and we recently

got back in contact via Facebook, and he said that, you know, I believe in miracles, I believe in prophecy today, etc.,

etc., etc., and I said, well, you know, I believe that God

has spoken to us with His final word, you know, little Hebrews 1 action,

in the personal work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

But when we think about it, even then, in the age of the miraculous,

could anyone expect a miracle?

The answer is no.

Even then, people died.

Even then, people got sick and did not recover.

Even then, bad things happen to believers.

But while the church was being established, from time to time, the Lord chose to

do these kind of miracles to demonstrate that these apostles were telling the truth about the

Son of God, that Jesus was the Christ, that He could be trusted,

that He was risen, that He was ascended.

Now, look at verse 43, really kind of an odd verse, one of those verses, whereas a

pastor, you're like, okay, do I just skip this verse, wait till next week?

And he, talking about Peter, stayed in Joppa for many days with one

Simon, a tanner.

Now, what should we take out of that, you know, that the two Simons are hanging out together?

No.

Why is it significant at all?

Why does Luke mention it?

Because Luke's a good storyteller.

And here's the point.

The point is, Simon the tanner lives in Joppa, tanners need a lot of water to

clean the animal skins that they're working on, so Simon the tanner lives there, but guess

what?

He's ceremonially unclean.

He's an outcast from, you know, from a Jewish perspective, he's not somebody that

would be welcome inside of a synagogue because of the work he did.

He dealt with dead things all the time, dead animals, but Peter

stays with him.

He's perfectly willing to do that.

Why?

Because this sets the stage for the next part of the gospel expansion.

We've seen the gospel go through Judea, Samaria, all this whole area here,

Israel, we would think about.

Well, it's about to go outside.

It's about to really go outside the Jewish world and into the Gentile world, and what he's doing is

he's, Luke is setting the stage up for people that we wouldn't normally think of as,

or at least the Jews would not think of, as being acceptable.

But the gospel is going to go to them, and even Peter isn't really thinking that at this point.

He doesn't know the plan of God.

He's just an agent of the Lord.

Now, friends, you may sometimes feel helpless like Anais, hopeless,

certainly not dead, but circumstances come up in life that seem overwhelming.

I think even Christians can be tempted to think that, well, I mean, miracles

are possible, right?

Can God act in a miraculous way?

He absolutely can, and that's when I say, when I say, you know, when my friend says, you're putting God in a box, I say, well,

I'm not doing that.

God can do whatever He wants.

He's God, and I'm not.

But what we know is that the history of miracles is

relatively compact, but sometimes even in His providence

it can seem like miraculous things are happening.

But I have no power.

I can't change your health.

I can't change your wealth.

I can't even change the important relationships in your life.

I can't bring you joy and happiness.

I'm here to tell you about a man who is more than a man.

He is truly man and truly God.

He has eternally existed.

He's our Creator.

He alone conquered sin and death.

In fact, I thought it would be good to go to 1 Corinthians 15, the

words of Saul, now Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, certainly the

Apostle Paul wrote it.

1 Corinthians 15 verses 12 to 22.

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say

that there is no resurrection of the dead?

Because there were certainly people in the Corinthian Church trying to teach that.

But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been

raised.

And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain.

Everything that Paul did, everything that Peter did, is based on the simple fact

that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead.

And he says, if he hasn't been raised from the dead, then our preaching is vain.

And worse, your faith, your belief is in vain.

Why?

Because you believe what God didn't do.

15, we are even found to be misrepresenting God because we testified about God that he

raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised, because

Jesus is the firstfruits.

For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised.

And if Christ has not been raised, here's the heart of the matter.

Your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.

Miracles?

Fine.

Anais?

Raised from his bed.

Great.

Tabitha?

Raised from the dead.

Great.

But guess what?

She's going to die.

She's going to die again.

And if Jesus is not raised from the dead, she dies in her sins.

You die in your sins.

He says that.

Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.

They're going to hell.

Verse 19, if in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most

to be pitied.

This is Christian liberalism right here.

Liberal church says, do good works.

Be focused on those things.

Do good in this life only.

Jesus is our moral example.

But Paul says, if Christ is your hope in this life only, you

are to be pitied.

You are to be wept over.

Verse 20, but in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

The first one raised forever from the dead, Jesus Christ.

For as by a man came death, our father Adam introduced death into the world.

By a man also has come or by a man has come also the resurrection

of the dead.

Because Jesus is the second Adam who has defeated death.

He says in verse 22, for as in Adam all die, because of Adam we all suffer physical death,

so also those in Christ shall be made alive.

In other words, we're going to die as our father Adam did, but we shall not taste the

second death, which is to say we will not go to hell, but we'll have eternal

life with him.

We sang a Getty's song earlier.

I had these lyrics from another one that I was listening to.

By the way, if you're not listening to really great hymns throughout the week, you're missing out.

I can't say, I won't grade my singing voice, but I sing all the time to this stuff.

I would specifically recommend to you the Together for the Gospel albums, So Good.

This song, what is our hope in life and death?

Christ alone, Christ alone.

What is our only confidence?

That our souls to him belong, who holds our days within his hand, what comes apart from

his command, and what will keep us till the end?

The love of Christ in which we stand.

Oh sing hallelujah, our hope springs eternal.

Oh sing hallelujah, now and ever we confess Christ our hope in life and death.

What truth can calm the troubled soul?

God is good, our God is good.

Where is his grace and goodness known?

In our Redeemer's blood.

Who holds our faith when fears arise?

Who stands above the stormy trial?

Who sends the waves that bring us nigh unto the shore?

The rock of Christ.

Who does that?

Christ alone.

Unto the grave what shall we sing?

Christ he lives, Christ he lives.

And what reward will heaven bring?

Everlasting life with him.

Then we will rise to meet the Lord.

Then sin and death will be destroyed, and we will feast in endless joy when Christ is ours

forevermore.

Let's pray.

Father in heaven, we thank you for these illustrations of the power of

our resurrected Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, Anais Tabitha,

raised by the power of Jesus Christ, who is not dead,

who does not sleep, whoever lives to intercede for his people.

We can rejoice, have comfort, and even eagerly

anticipate the most difficult situations in life, knowing that this

life is a vapor, and then eternity with Christ is our reality,

not because of what we have done, but because in whom we have trusted, in

whom we have believed.

Father, help us, no matter what difficulties come our way, to trust him all the more,

to lean on Christ, who is our only hope.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen.