WWUTT 1121 Eutychus Raised from the Dead?

The Setting of Paul’s Journey Through Macedonia and Greece

Paul was given one of the greatest sermon illustrations that any preacher has ever done. He preached on the resurrection, a man died, Paul raised him to life, and then broke bread at communion when we understand the text.

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Here's our host, Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of the book of Acts. This week we're in chapter 20, and I'll start out here by reading the first 16 verses. This is verse 1. After the uproar ceased, Paul sent for the disciples, and after encouraging them he said farewell and departed for Macedonia.

When he had gone through those regions and had given them much encouragement, he came to Greece. There he spent three months, and when a plot was made against him by the Jews as he was about to set sail for Syria, he decided to return through Macedonia.

Sopater the Berean, son of Pyrrhus, accompanied him, and of the Thessalonians Aristarchus and Secondus, and Gaius of Derbe and Timothy, and the Asians Tychicus and Trophimus. These went on ahead and were waiting for us at Troas, but we sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread, and in five days we came to them at Troas, where we stayed for seven days.

Luke’s Haste Toward Jerusalem and Rome

On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight. There were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered, and a young man named Eutychus, sitting at the window, sank into a deep sleep as Paul talked still longer.

And being overcome by sleep, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead. But Paul went down and bent over him, and taking him in his arms, said, Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him.

And when Paul had gone up and broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them a long while until daybreak and so departed. And they took the youth away alive and were not a little comforted. But going ahead to the ship, we set sail for Assos, intending to take Paul aboard there, for so he had arranged, intending himself to go by land.

And when he met us at Assos, we took him on board and went to Mytilene. And sailing from there, we came to the following day, opposite Chios. The next day we touched at Samos, and the day after that we went to Miletus.

For Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus so that he might not have to spend time in Asia, for he was hastening to be at Jerusalem, if possible, on the day of Pentecost. Now that last line there, verse 16, where it says that Paul was not trying to stop at Ephesus so that he wouldn't have to spend any time at Asia, he was hastening to Jerusalem.

This whole section here that we've just read, chapter 20, verses 1 through 16, this really is also Luke hastening to Jerusalem. That's ultimately where he's getting to in the story, for that's where Paul was taken prisoner and eventually shipped to Rome.

And so we're kind of hurrying through some other events here. You notice that Luke lists several names of people that were with Paul in this missionary group that he was utilizing as they went through the region, encouraging the churches, and then stopping at Troas.

We have a short story there, the story of Eutychus being raised from the dead. And then he goes back on his way. We've got a list of places where Paul stops, where the missionaries had gone and were sharing the gospel and encouraging the churches.

And then we jump straight from all of that back to meeting with the Ephesian elders. And we'll get to that tomorrow, starting in verse 17. And that speech that he shares with the elders goes through verse 35.

And then sort of the final things that he does there with them at the end of Acts, chapter 20. And then we get to Jerusalem in chapter 21. So these events here are they're kind of unrolling rather quickly.

And what we have listed here in chapter 20, starting in verse one, after the uproar ceased, of course, this is following the events that happened in Ephesus with the crowd that was shouting great as Artemis to the Ephesians, trying to silence the Christians and even trying to persecute them, although the crowd was silenced before a riot could fully break out.

But nevertheless, the uproar was enough for Paul to be encouraged to move on. The spirit was moving him on in other work that he had to do, especially in the fact that he was meaning to go to Jerusalem.

That was back in chapter 19, verse 21. Now, after these events, Paul resolved in the spirit to pass through Macedonia and Achaia and go to Jerusalem, saying, after I have been there, I must also see Rome.

So the spirit is already impressed upon his heart. He's going to go to Jerusalem and then to Rome. And that's when we have the riot breakout then in Ephesus. So all of these things kind of pushing Paul in that direction.

So after the uproar was over, things had kind of calmed down. The church was was not unsettled, but had continued in perseverance of the gospel. Paul sent for the disciples, those that he had made there in Ephesus.

And after encouraging them, he said farewell and departed for Macedonia. So he's leaving the church of Ephesus in good hands. And remember, this was a church that Paul had very much endeared himself to.

And he was he had very close knit relationships here, more so than he had probably in any other church. He stayed in Ephesus longer. He was in Corinth for quite a long time, over a year and a half, but stayed in Ephesus even longer than that.

Has encouraged this church, left it in good leadership. He's going to move on, but then he's even going to send some strong leadership back to Ephesus, especially his protege, Timothy, to become the pastor there.

That'll come up a little bit later on. Now, one of the things that I've not been doing as we've been going through this in Acts, I've not been sharing with you where Paul's letters fall in succession here.

So like as we're reading these events, at what point was Paul writing to the Thessalonians? At what point was he writing to the Romans? When did he write 1st and 2nd Corinthians? These are some of the things that we haven't done as we've been going through this.

So I'll touch on that a little bit here today. And so Paul says farewell, he departs for Macedonia. When he had gone through those regions and had given them much encouragement, he came to Greece. There he spent three months, and when a plot was made against him by the Jews, as he was about to set sail for Syria, he decided to return through Macedonia.

So it was because of this plot that had come against him that he decided not to set sail, but instead to go through Macedonia. Sopater the Berean son of Pyrrhus accompanied him, and of the Thessalonians Aristarchus and Secondus, and Gaius of Derbe and Timothy, and the Asians Tychicus and Trophimus.

This isn't Asians like they were Chinese or Japanese or Korean or Vietnamese. That's often kind of the nationalities we think of when we use that term Asian. But they were from that region of Asia Minor, which is modern day Turkey.

That's where they were from. Just simply saying to them the location they were from and that they were not of the Jewish company of missionaries that were with Paul. And then verse five, these went on ahead and were waiting for us at Troas.

But we sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread. And in five days, we came to them at Troas, where we stayed for seven days. So you have some that were journeying by land and some that went by sea.

And they all kind of met up in the same place. Now, it's during this particular journey that Paul is making through Macedonia that he stopped at Corinth. This is the painful visit that he talks about in Second Corinthians.

And it was very troubling for him to have to do this because the Corinthians had denied his authority as an apostle. And like most Greeks, they wanted guys who were eloquent and good speakers. And Apollos proved that to be to them.

They even thought of Peter as being that way. But Paul was very meek in stature. He wasn't as strong a speaker. He had a weaker presence. And so for that matter, the Corinthians were not as impressed with him.

And they started to believe these super apostles, guys that came in, decked out with these awesome voices and saying that they were even greater apostles than Paul. They started believing them instead of believing Paul.

And so it broke Paul's heart to have to do this, to have to be very confrontational with the Corinthians because of some of the sins that he had heard were going on in that church. So his first letter to the Corinthians, which is technically his second, but it's the first one we have in canon, the letter of First Corinthians.

Paul wrote that while he was in Ephesus. So during that two plus year period of time that he was in Ephesus, he had written First Corinthians. And all of this is during the third missionary journey. By the way, we're on Paul's third missionary journey right now.

In fact, his coming to Ephesus was near the beginning of that third missionary journey. Remember when he went back to Antioch and then he started making his way through Asia Minor by stopping in Tarsus and Derbe and Lystra and Iconium.

And so he was making his way back to Ephesus by land. That was all part of the third missionary journey. That was the beginning of that journey. It started at Antioch of Syria, the northern portion of Syria.

And so then even though he stayed, he stopped for over two years in Ephesus. That was still part of that third missionary journey. And that's what we're on right now. So he's coming back around to Corinth that we're reading about right here with his journey back into Macedonia and backtracking a little bit.

He wrote 1 Thessalonians in about 50 A .D. when he was in Corinth the first time. That was on his second missionary journey. And then he still wrote another letter to the Thessalonians while he was in Corinth for over that year and a half that he was there.

That was in about 51 A .D. So 1 and 2 Thessalonians were both written in the time that Paul was in Corinth. And some scholars regard those letters as Paul's first. There's some debate about that because some want to argue even that Galatians was his first.

But but 1 and 2 Thessalonians are likely the earliest. They were written when he was in Corinth. And then sometime later on, about two years later, he wrote his letter to the Galatians while he was in Antioch in Syria.

So it's kind of like he wrote that ahead of journeying back into Asia Minor during his third missionary journey. So the the letter went ahead of him. And then he stopped in those churches to confront them on the false teaching that they had accepted.

That faith was by or I'm sorry, that salvation was by faith and works. You have to be circumcised. You have to do these works in order to be saved. Paul wrote ahead of his stopping in those churches to say that is a different gospel.

And then he follows up that letter with the beginning of that third missionary journey on his way back to Ephesus. Then when he gets to Ephesus, about 56 AD, he wrote his first letter to the Corinthians, the first one in Canon and all of this during his third missionary journey.

Then he wrote Second Corinthians, probably when he was in Philippi, this this spot that we're talking about right here in Acts chapter 20, where they come back to Philippi. That was when he wrote Second Corinthians.

And he was encouraged when he met up with Titus to hear about the repentance that had taken place in Corinth, repenting of sins and even repenting of the rejection of Paul's authority as an apostle. So they were even repenting of that and coming to understand that, well, Paul's an apostle of Christ.

These super apostles are not yet. There were still some that were following these super apostles. And so Paul means to continue that rebuke in Second Corinthians, still in an effort to win back those that were being persuaded by these false teachers, these workers of Satan, the way Paul puts it in Second Corinthians 11.

Then it was somewhere around the year 57 that Paul wrote to the Romans. And this is still all on this third missionary journey before he goes back to Jerusalem. It was during the three months of travel through Macedonia and Achaia that we're reading about here in chapter 20, verses one through three.

And Paul talks about in that letter his desire to visit them. So again, he knows that the spirit is eventually going to take him to Rome. But in the meantime, he writes to encourage them to clarify certain doctrinal issues.

Romans is where we're going after we get done with the book of Acts. So I'm going to teach on Romans again. I've done that on the podcast once, but it was when we were going through kind of a transition on the podcast.

So I'm going to do that again, go back to Romans. So we'll talk about some of those doctrinal things. Of course, the main doctrine he lays out is justification by faith in the book of Romans. And so he's confronting some doctrinal things, encouraging them, and also meaning to encourage them in the news that he means to come to them soon.

So an apostle is going to come to visit them for the first time. And then you have in, which we'll get to a little bit later on as we continue through Acts. But while Paul is in his first imprisonment in Rome, that's when he writes prison letters like Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Philemon.

So that's kind of a quick rundown of some of the letters of Paul that he's been writing over the course of these missionary journeys and some of the bulkier letters during this second missionary journey, which we're soon to come to the end of.

Eutychus Raised from the Dead at Troas

So here we are in these in these first six verses, Luke laying down various locations that were visited and people who were with Paul. And then we have a kind of a story right in the middle here of Paul sharing the gospel at Troas and raising a man from the dead.

This is illustrating how the spirit is continuing to work in the midst of all these things. Luke doesn't want to rush through this and think that that it was all legwork and not spiritual work for the Holy Spirit is still showing himself in power and wonder in the midst of all of this.

So verse seven on the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight. So first day of the week, this is Sunday.

It's the Lord's Day when they're gathering together to break bread. So they're practicing communion. Paul preached for a long time here, and that is illustrated by verse eight. Well, of course, the end of verse seven, Paul prolonged his speech until midnight.

But notice that verse eight says there were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered. In other words, the people were prepared for that. They wanted to set things up so that Paul could preach a long time.

This was a great opportunity to have an apostle here with us teaching us. And so we're going to make the most of this time that we have. He's got to leave. He's got to get going. What do we need to do so that we can get the most teaching out of this visit?

So they had lamps in the upper room set up so that Paul could preach a long time, not even just into midnight, but beyond that until daybreak. So he's preaching so long that somebody falls asleep. Verse nine.

And a young man named Eutychus sitting at the window sank into a deep sleep as Paul talked still longer and being overcome by sleep. He fell down from the third story and was taken up dead. He fell from 30 feet in the air about and and he died, hit the ground and died.

But Paul went down and bent over him, taking him up in his arms and said, do not be alarmed for his life is in him. And when Paul had gone up, he had broken bread and eaten practicing communion and then conversed with them for a long while.

So after they've preached before communion, now they've partaken in the Lord's Supper. And now he continues to preach until daybreak and then departed. And they took the youth away alive and were not a little comforted.

So this is the power of the Holy Spirit being demonstrated through Paul, even in their midst with this young man who had died. Of course, you know, all the jokes that go into this. A lot of pastors will will will say, hey, hopefully I'm not preaching so long that you fall asleep and die because I'm not the Apostle Paul.

So if you're dead, you're dead. I'm not going to be able to raise you from the dead. But but even in even in this encounter, as short as it was going to be, the Holy Spirit still showing the power of God through the preaching through miracles in that this young man had died, but Paul raised him to life.

And where it says in verse 12, they were not a little comforted. That means they were very comforted. They were very encouraged by what they had seen, though Paul's visit was brief. They were encouraged by the words that he preached and they were encouraged by the miracles that they saw, knowing that this message that has been proclaimed to us is our salvation from the dead.

By believing in this, we, though we die in our bodies, will be raised again with Christ by the power that enables him to subject all things to himself. He will transform our lowly bodies to be like his glorious body, as Paul wrote to the Philippians and was also in his preaching.

So as he had proclaimed these things now, notice this was right before communion. So he's talking about the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. Eutychus dies. Paul raises him from the dead and then goes up and breaks bread.

Paul went down, bent over him, taking him in his arms, said, don't be alarmed. His life is in him. This young man is alive. And when Paul had gone up and broken bread and eaten, he conversed with him a little while.

So, hey, how is that for a sermon illustration right there? He's been proclaiming the resurrection of Christ. Eutychus dies. He raises Eutychus from the dead. He goes back up, does communion and then says, this is for all of us.

The body that was broken for us, the blood that was spilled for the forgiveness of our sins, Christ laid down his life, rose again from the dead so that all who believe in him will likewise have a resurrection like his.

So in all of this, the people were just supremely overcome with hope and joy and elation and the promises of the gospel that had been given to them by God through his son, Jesus Christ. All of this and everything that Paul preached and the Holy Spirit demonstrated.

It is not normative for us to expect that we will witness the resurrection of the dead in this lifetime, a physical resurrection of bodies that die. We won't see that. That is not for us. But rather, these occasions in which we see this witnessed and testified to, written down in the New Testament, when we read about these things, what this shows to us is that God has demonstrated his power over the grave by raising Christ to life and then has also demonstrated that power in other occasions of resurrection, whether that was through his prophets or his apostles.

You know, the word that was spoken was a word from God because they could raise the dead and only God could bring the dead to life. There are not modern apostles. Never, ever be led astray by anyone who claims to be an apostle in the present age.

They are liars. They are proclaiming to be these super apostles like Paul had to warn against in 2 Corinthians chapter 11. Mike Bickle, who's just down the road from me, just two hours away, teaching at IHOP in Kansas City, he has said that God is going to be revealing apostles of these last days that are even greater than the apostles from the New Testament.

Now, he, I think, believes this is in reference to himself, but he won't say that. And oftentimes these guys won't. But then they have these conferences, these gatherings that they call like prophet conferences and an apostle, the gathering of the apostles or something like that.

And they'll all attend these things, believing that they are the new apostles of the present age. But they're liars. They're liars and thieves. They are wolves, have nothing to do with them. How can they prove that they're an apostle?

By raising the dead, which they cannot do. So therefore, we know there are not modern apostles. Paul states in 1 Corinthians 15, 8, that he was the last to be appointed an apostle. No one will be appointed an apostle after him.

If they can raise the dead, they will demonstrate that the power of God is in them, as Paul has done here in Acts 20. That's why these Troasians, is that what you call somebody from Troas? That's why they were so encouraged by what it is that they heard, because Paul demonstrated the word that had come to him was the word of the Lord.

Look how the power of God through him was able to raise Eutychus from the dead. And we yet know that these men were apostles because of the testimony of their power to raise the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit that was in them.

And so they confirmed that their word was from God in these miracles that had been performed. Again, this is not going to be normative for us, but it does give us a picture through the testimony that has been shared and we have written down in the New Testament.

It gives us a picture of the resurrection that we will all receive on the day that Christ returns, for he himself has conquered death, the last enemy, which he will destroy with the breath of his mouth.

Paul’s Letters in the Order of His Missionary Journeys

We go on to verse 13 here, finishing up this section. But going ahead to the ship, we all set sail for Assos, intending to take Paul aboard there, for he had arranged this, intending himself to go by land.

And when he met us at Assos, we took him on board and went to Mytilene and sailing from there, we came the following day opposite Chios. The next day we touched at Samos, and the day after that we went to Miletus, for Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus so that he might not have to spend time in Asia, for he was hastening to be at Jerusalem if possible.

Now, it's there in Miletus that he summons the Ephesian elders to come to him, and that's the section we're going to be looking at tomorrow. In fact, we'll spend the next couple of days on Paul's final message to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20, verses 17 through 38.

Let's conclude with prayer. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for the confirmation of your word that has been given through your prophets and apostles, and you demonstrated the power of this word by even raising the dead so that we have an assurance of the resurrection of the dead for all who have faith in Jesus Christ.

And let this confidence in the work of Christ fill us up in everything that we do. We have no reason to doubt or despair in anything, for the penalty of death has been paid for by Christ, who died for our sins and rose again from the dead.

We rejoice in Christ all this day long and are filled with joy in the hearing of his gospel. In the name of Christ we pray. Amen.