The God of the Living
Notes
Transcript
The title of the message is “The God of the Living”.
This is because God is not the God of the dead but He is
The God of the Living
The God of the Living
This phrase was part of the response Jesus gave to the Sadducee's when they gave him a hypothetical question that was meant to trap him.
They asked Jesus about a woman who married seven brothers one after the other as they each died.
Their question was in Mark 12:23 where they asked, “In the resurrection, when they rise, whose wife will she be?”
Jesus responded in
25 For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. 26 Now concerning the dead, that they are raised, have you not read in the book of Moses in the passage about the bush how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob’? 27 He is not God of the dead, but of the living. You are very much mistaken!”
The Sadducees had several errors in their understanding about God which is why Jesus said “You are very much mistaken!”.
There is no marriage in the resurrection so there was no context in God’s Kingdom for this question.
They pushed this whole question of the resurrection off to some time in the future and by doing this they also pushed their relationship with God off to some future time. Jesus reminded them that God spoke to Moses. Jesus was saying, God is with us now.
And finally, Jesus said in vs 27, “He is not God of the dead, but of the living”
This is a central message of Christianity but it is also one of the most difficult for us to comprehend.
We have just celebrated Easter. This is the time when we remember the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. So I want to make this point with this phrase:
Why Seek the Living Among the Dead
Why Seek the Living Among the Dead
This is found in
Luke 24:5 “Why are you looking for the living among the dead?”
but lets go back to
1 Now on the first day of the week, at very early dawn, they came back to the tomb bringing the fragrant spices which they had prepared.
It says they came back to the tomb, they had been there before as they laid Jesus there.
And why did they come back to the tomb? It says, to bring the fragrant spices they had prepared.
It is clear here that through the whole time of the Sabbath and Passover they were living in their grief and loss and only thinking about their separation from Jesus.
In Luke 24:2 they found the stone had been rolled away. The stone was too heavy for them to move.
In vs 3 they did not find the body.
In vs 4 they were perplexed, and so perplexed that they didn’t notice the two angels standing near them.
In vs 5 it says “as they were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground”, they were so grief stricken that they couldn’t stand.
But now, the angels are perplexed. The angels don’t understand what the women are doing there and say “Why are you looking for the living among the dead?”
For the angels, what Jesus has said, what God has said, is absolute.
The angels don’t understand this human frailty that we forget, that we don’t trust the words people speak, that we react with emotion to what is happening at the moment.
But for the angels, they responded with the words of Jesus in
6 He is not here, but has been raised! Remember how he spoke to you while he was still in Galilee, 7 saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of men who are sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise?” 8 And they remembered his words,
Jesus had told them He would be crucified and that He would rise, and that they should meet Him in Galilee.
Now the women remembered and in vs 9, they went and told this “to the eleven and all the rest”.
You would think that the words of these women would have triggered the memory of Peter and the other Apostles as the words of the angels had done for the women but instead, the Apostles respond in
11 And these words appeared to them as nonsense, and they refused to believe them. 12 But Peter got up and ran to the tomb, and bending over to look, he saw only the strips of linen cloth, and he went away to his home wondering what had happened.
“nonsense”.
How is it that we can hear what God has to say and even see it being fulfilled in front of us and still walk away as Peter did in vs 12 “wondering what had happened”?
What Else Has God Spoken?
What Else Has God Spoken?
The whole context is in Ezekiel 36:1–38 as the Lord speaks to Ezekiel and tells him to prophesy.
Mountains of Israel Hear
Mountains of Israel Hear
The Lord tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the mountains in
1 “And you, son of man, prophesy to the mountains of Israel; and so you must say, ‘Mountains of Israel, hear the word of Yahweh;
Ezekiel is to tell the mountains, in v 6 for a time “the insults of the peoples you have endured” but now the land will prosper as Israel takes over in
8 “ ‘ “But you, mountains of Israel, your branch you will shoot, and your fruit you will carry for my people Israel, for they are soon to come. 9 For look! I am for you, and I will turn to you, and you will be tilled, and you will be planted. 10 And I will cause your population to increase for you, all of the house of Israel, all of it, and the towns will be inhabited, and the ruins will be built. 11 And I will cause your population to increase for you, and domestic animals, even they will be numerous, and they will be fruitful, and I will cause you to be inhabited like your ancient times, and I will do good things more than in your former times, and you will know that I am Yahweh.
We have seen Israel blossom as a fruitful nation since their formation as a nation after World War II.
The Lord goes on and tells Ezekiel to prophesy again in Ezekiel 37:1–14
A Nation from Dry Bones
A Nation from Dry Bones
Earlier, we played a song, Rattle, by Zach Williams. This song is based on Ezekiel 37:1-14
This prophetic word given to Ezekiel by the Lord begins with a vision in
1 The hand of Yahweh was upon me, and he brought me by the Spirit of Yahweh, and he let me rest in the midst of the valley, and it was full of bones.
Ezekiel is in a valley full of bones, not even of skeletons, but of disconnected bones. As the vision unfolds in vs 2 and 3, the bones are very dry as if they have been dead a long time.
The Lord asks in vs 3 “can these bones live?”
Clearly they can’t by any natural means but Ezekiel knows that it is God speaking to him so he responds “Lord you know”.
Now, the Lord tells Ezekiel to Prophesy in
4 And he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and you must say to them, to the dry bones, ‘Hear the word of Yahweh!
The Lord tells Ezekiel, “you must say to them (these bones), ‘Hear the word of the Lord’ ”
As Ezekiel speaks, in
10 And I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they became alive, and they stood on their feet, a very, very large group.
“they became alive”, “a very large group”
As we speak the Word of the Lord in our situation, the Lord will accomplish what He has said.
Now the Lord explains who these bones are in
11 And he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are all of the house of Israel; look! they are saying, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is destroyed; we are cut off as far as we are concerned.’
Though the “house of Israel” is saying “our hope is destroyed”, the Lord tells Ezekiel to continue speaking in
12 Therefore prophesy, and you must say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh: “Look! I am opening your graves, and I will bring you up from your graves, my people, and I will bring you to the land of Israel! 13 And you will know that I am Yahweh when I open your graves when I bring you up from your graves, my people! 14 And I will put my breath into you so that you may live, and I will cause you to rest on your soil, and you will know that I, Yahweh, I have spoken, and I will act!” ’ declares Yahweh.”
Israel as a nation was scattered around the world.
They were dead and buried in mass graves in World War II.
Yet, even after their “hope is destroyed” God established them as a nation.
God goes on with the prophesy in Ezekiel 37:15–28
One Nation from Divided Kingdoms
One Nation from Divided Kingdoms
Again the word of the Lord comes to Ezekiel in vs 15.
The Lord tells him to take a piece of wood and to write the name of Judah on one and Israel on the other and hold them together in his hand before the people.
The Lord then explains in
21 And speak to them, ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh: “Look! I am taking the Israelites from among the nations to which they went, and I will gather them from everywhere, and I will bring them to their own soil. 22 And I will make them into one nation in the land on the mountains of Israel, and they will all have one king as their king, and they will not again be two nations and will not again divide into two kingdoms again.
God said He would make one nation of them and we have seen God doing this in our generation.
The Jewish people have come from all around the world and they have become one nation, no longer divided.
But God has not only spoken to Israel
All Creation Awaits
All Creation Awaits
Just as God has is restoring Israel, there is also a promise for all creation in Romans 8:18-30
19 For the eagerly expecting creation awaits eagerly the revelation of the sons of God. 20 For the creation has been subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself also will be set free from its servility to decay, into the glorious freedom of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groans together and suffers agony together until now.
“creation awaits eagerly the revelation of the sons of God”
There is not only a promise to Israel, there is a promise to the “sons of God” and “the whole creation groans” until we take our rightful place.
Just as Jesus rose from the grave,
Just as Israel as a Nation has been restored
So also there is coming a revelation of the sons of God but there is also a warning that as in Isaiah 8:1–22
Two Warnings to Israel
Two Warnings to Israel
Don’t Give in to Popular Fears
Don’t Give in to Popular Fears
The first, a warning about giving in to popular fears, began in Isaiah 8:11 “he warned me not to walk in the way of this people”. We are to distinguish ourselves from the way (lifestyle, or characteristic modes of thought and conduct) “of this people”.
12 “You must not call conspiracy everything that this people calls conspiracy, and you must not share its fear, and you must not be in dread.
And this is that we should not follow popular thinking regarding some conspiracy.
In Isaiah’s time, there was danger for the nation from the king’s policy of alliance with Assyria which led to rumor and fear of accusation of treason by the royal court.
In our day it is our support, or lack of support for things like
LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer or questioning) as related to a person's sexual orientation or gender identity
Critical Race Theory which says that race is a socially constructed category that is used to oppress and exploit people of color
and other “Politically Correct” positions that you must agree with or be ostracized (“the border wall”, “full-term abortion”, “the COVID inoculation passport”.
This comment "do not call conspiracy everything that these people call conspiracy” is a command to keep a clear conscience (1 Pet. 3:15–16).
The distinctiveness of the group is seen in their trust in the Lord.
Don’t Yield to Popular Superstitions
Don’t Yield to Popular Superstitions
Then, Isaiah warns against popular superstitions
19 Now if they tell you, “Consult the ghosts and the spirits, those who chirp and those who mutter. Should not a people consult its gods, the dead on behalf of the living, 20 for teaching and for testimony?” surely they who speak like this have no dawn.
There was pressure to conform “if they tell you”
And, there are those that, like the witch at Endor (1 Sam. 28), Spiritists (yiddĕ‘ōnîm from √ yāda‘, ‘to know’): people who claimed ‘insider knowledge’, especially of the future (Lev. 19:31; 20:2; Deut. 18:11) and turn from the plain word of the Lord to mumbo-jumbo.
Isaiah speaks of ‘my people’ in 3:12 and goes to ‘this people’ in 6:9; 8:12. “This people” is brought to a point where their enthusiasm for fortune-tellers and messages from the dead was rampant with claims that the dead are in possession of greater powers and superior knowledge to the living.
In the Bible it is not so. The Old Testament knows that, leaving their bodies behind, the dead can be only shadows of what they were (Isa. 14:10); the dead Samuel knows no more after death than he proclaimed when alive (1 Sam. 28:16ff.). See on 19:9.
Jesus Was Raised From the Dead
Jesus Was Raised From the Dead
11 And if the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, the one who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also make alive your mortal bodies through his Spirit who lives in you.
the one who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also make alive your mortal bodies
We have a sure word from God, we are the sons of God.
God is for us. The power of God is available to us through the Holy Spirit.