Thursday, Sept. 25

Thursday

Fellow Israelites, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.  - Acts 2:22-24

Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.  - Acts 2:36

Right here in Peter’s great sermon, we see the power of God among men — the resurrection power of God, a power which man cannot duplicate. Resurrection power is the ability to bring life out of death, to restore a situation which is hopeless, to change a person who is irremediable — that is resurrection power!

Years ago I met with a young man in high school who told me about his conversion, and the reaction of his father. His father was baffled by this conversion. It fit no psychological pattern he knew of. He could not explain why his son was so suddenly and drastically different. Because he could not explain it, it angered him, and he reacted against it, and was fighting it all the way.  This is not an infrequent reaction of those who come into contact with this power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead.

Man is always dreaming of finding ways to beat death. Baseball great Ted Williams had his head frozen in the hopes that he might someday be restored.  There are people today believing that you should get yourself deep-frozen, and your body put away in a storage vault and kept there for 50 to 100 years. Then, when science has supposedly solved the problem, found a cure for the disease you are dying of, they will thaw you out, and you will get a chance to go on living then. 

What a far cry from resurrection! This is not what happened to Jesus Christ when he rose from the dead in all the fullness and vitality of his person.

Peter says, “We disciples are the witnesses of these things. We saw him.” The remarkable thing is that not one voice is lifted in protest in this whole crowd of people. One of the greatest proofs of the resurrection of Jesus is right here — that this man could stand up in the city where these events had taken place, a little more than a month earlier, and tell these people that Jesus had risen from the dead, and not one voice challenges him! They had not seen him — he appeared only to his disciples — but they had known that the body was not there. They could go out to the tomb and see that it was empty. They knew that the authorities could not produce the body of Jesus. They had heard all the wild rumors that spread through the city that Jesus was alive and that he was appearing to his own disciples from time to time. There is not one voice who challenges what the apostle says. Instead they stand there in mute and stricken silence as the apostle drives home with powerful blows the sword of the Spirit, convicting them of the truth of his claim.

Father, thank you for the truth in this mighty declaration that Jesus Christ is indeed Lord. I pray that any who have never come to know this One as Lord may now open their life and cry out to him as these men and women did and hear this saving word to repent and to believe, and thus receive the promised Spirit  - Amen.

Jeff Frazier