Raised to Life Again

Women received their dead raised to life again. And others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. (Hebrews 11:35, NKJV).

There is a difference between resuscitation and resurrection. The former is temporary, the latter eternal. Both are spoken of in Scripture, and the first is a gift that points to the second as a kind of precursor to what will occur in the future.

Note in this verse that it is specifically women who received their dead raised to life again.

It brings to mind Elijah raising the son of the Zarephath widow (1 Kings 17:17-22), and Elisha doing the same with son of the Shunammite woman (2 Kings 4:32-35).  Another man was raised from the dead when his body touched Elisha’s bones (2 Kings 13:20, 21).

Jesus raised the son of the widow of Nain from the dead (Luke 7:11-15), and the daughter of Jairus (Luke 8:41, 42, 49-55), and of course Lazarus (John 11:1-44). Peter raised Dorcas from the dead (Acts 9:36-41) and Eutychus was raised from the dead by Paul (Acts 20:9, 10).

At least eight specific instances are recorded in Scripture, with many other instances implied. Most resuscitations were to the benefit of women, who were substantially dependent on the income and support of their sons or husbands in those days.

Yet I think another treasure is provided for us here, not just an indication of God's oft-cited concern for widows and orphans. And it is this: one of the many significant differences between men and women is a woman's humility in seeking comfort and restoration. And those who seek are guaranteed to find. Men, for a variety of reasons, are less likely to seek this kind of comfort, and there is a lesson here.

Not only are these incidents affirmations of God's rightful authority over life and death, existence and nonexistence, but these are illustrations of an important spiritual principle.

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. “For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. (Matthew 7:7, 8, NKJV).

How hard is it to rest and find comfort in these assurances? Certainly it flies in the face of most of life's material experience. Death is the most implacable scourges of human existence, and the fear of death is a bondage inescapable through any other means except faith in Christ.

Mercifully, we are shown repeatedly that God, through His prophets and especially through the Person of His Son, has definitive power over the most elemental aspect of our being, life itself. And while the vast majority of believers will cross the threshold of physical death, it is not the end. The question is, do we really believe that to be the case?

If we did, while we might fear dying, we should not fear the moment of death, and if it shows itself to be inevitable, we should looked towards it with hope and joy. Not that we have the right to take or own life (we are God's through the dual rights of manufacture and purchase on the Cross), nor  should we ever, outside the will of God, place our selves purposefully in death's sites.

But when that time comes, when we are faced with that ancient enemy, we are to remember what it was that was conquered on the Cross of Christ - sin and death. And we are to bring to mind that the incidents of demonstrated power over death are recorded for our learning, that we, through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.

Beyond that, as we had to be born to live temporally, we must be transformed to live eternally.

He is risen from the dead having conquered death by death.

If we believe He is Lord, if we believe He has done those things written beforehand, then the power that He has demonstrated would undergird every aspect of our daily lives. We would face the Goliaths of life with the same confidence displayed by David in the Valley of Elah.

When He appears, those who are in the graves will rise again, not to mere resuscitation, to die again, but to life everlasting.

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. “And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25, 26, NKJV).

Through Faith

And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. (Hebrews 11:32-34, NKJV).

To quote Inigo Montoya, "I don't think that word means what you think it means."

What can faith do? Subdue kingdoms, work righteousness, obtain promises, stop the mouths of lions, quench the violence of fire, escape the edge of the sword, make the weak strong, engender valiance, cause armies to run away in defeat, toss mountains into the sea, heal the sick, give sight to the blind, bring understanding, and raise the dead - just to name a few.

More than anything else, faith is that "mythical" engine that drives the real workings of the universe, or brings it to a screeching halt. By its very nature, faith flies in the face of human pride. 

In a way, it's like electricity. We can see what it does, but don't understand what it is or how it works in and of itself. Unlike electricity there is no way to generate faith. You can't grit your teeth and do another faith rep on the spiritual exercise machine. 

It is a gift made necessary by our essential blindness and insensibility, and given to us by a Being who IS love and has mercy. It can increase only through knowledge of Who is its source, and that is not so much an increase or growth, as it is a natural outcome of knowing God - like opening your eyes wider to see more light. Neither the light nor your eyes have changed, but the amount of what you see has burgeoned exponentially.

It is a non-physical, non-energy, unquantifiable something that holds everything together or causes everything to fly apart. It is more mysterious than the most enigmatic cosmic particle, and it is that sole thing that determines whether you live or die for all eternity.

It is uniquely attributable to personhood. Doorknobs and broomsticks cannot have faith. Nor can amoebas or artichokes. Dogs don't need faith, nor do fish or birds or any members of the animal kingdom because they themselves are not fallen, but rather follow the lead of humanity who was made to have dominion over them. Where mankind goes, so goes the rest of Creation.

Without faith all of these statements about faith are incomprehensible - so much pie in the sky by and by, or rubbish, or wishful thinking. That is precisely what it was meant to be. Faith, like color, can only be understood by experiencing it. In the real Reality, faith is the true test of the measure of a man, woman or child. This is more than a little ironic because, in its essential quality, faith is invisible and unmeasurable.

Yet it is through faith that the cry of the human heart for perfection, justice and eternality is answered. It is only through faith that life has meaning, and death is seen as the blasphemous and barbarous result of sin. It is only through faith that sense can be made of tragedy and unfairness and suffering. Otherwise, and without faith, cruel random chance prevails and reigns over all existence. 

Without that gift of faith, and with the false understanding that there is no God, inconsolable despair is the logical result, and it would be better never to have been born. Voluntary reentry into the nothingness of nonexistence would be the sane option of choice, and it is a wonder in this faithless world that suicide is not the norm, rather than the exception.

But is it true that faithlessness abounds on this planet? Yes, faith in God is lacking, and will decrease as history winds down, but faith itself? In fact, human existence is permeated by faith. It is as natural as breathing. Even the most rabid atheist in the West stops at a red light and has faith that when it turns green the opposing flow of traffic will take its turn at hitting the brake. 

Are there violations of this kind of natural faith? Of course, just as breathing in toxic gas won't keep you alive, but that does not undermine the fact that everyday life requires faith for a person to even rise up out of bed in the morning.

Imagine just for a second how it would be like if you doubted everything you believed to be true about existence? Will gravity work this time? Will that floor hold your weight? Are you actually awake, or just dreaming? Do you, in fact, exist?

The bottom line is that people who think that a life of faith is infantile rubbish have no objection to faith itself; their lives are unavoidably wrapped in it. Their objection is to faith in God, and even more specifically, faith in Christ.

How intolerant and narrow-minded. Faith in other drivers or the laws of physics is fine and acceptable, but faith in God and His laws, which include, but surely transcend, the merely physical, is not?

We may not understand the essence of faith, exactly what it is in itself and how it "works", but we can know that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. We can know what it has done and will do.

And most importantly, we can know its true Source.

Suspend whatever disbelief you have in God for just an instant and consider this: if He exists and has revealed Himself in the Bible - a premise that cannot be disproven by any laws of logic - then retaining that disbelief in Him is the single most insane course of action that can be undertaken.

Allowing the door to open just enough for even a mustard seed's worth of faith in Him to enter into your life risks nothing except the real possibility that as you learn more of Him, and His Son, that door will be flung off its hinges and you will be transformed forever.

Not opening the door at all is the essence of narrow-mindedness, bigotry, self-absorption and self-satisfaction.

That is why we are told He stands at the door and knocks. He doesn't barge through it. That is not His way. He leaves it up to you, after giving you all the necessary prerequisites to make the choice.

There is a reason that He has made known this fact: without faith it is impossible to please Him. For he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

And the reason is His mercy. He wants you to live and has done everything necessary, including suffering the penalty of your sin on the Cross, so that you can have life through faith in Him. 

He has done everything except cram it done your throat.

The next step is up to you.

Prophets

And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. (Hebrews 11:32-34, NKJV).

In times past, God revealed Himself to mankind through visions, dreams and prophets.

Finally, in the fullness of time, He sent His Son, who could say without irony or duplicity, He who has seen Me has seen the Father.

Prophets spoke for God. Sometimes this involved describing history ahead of time, in the classic sense of "telling the future". This was done primarily to establish the true identity of the Source of the information, a Being outside of time and space who knows the end from the beginning. 

In fact, the argument for God's existence through prophetic utterances is so strong that skeptics have had to contort and twist historical and manuscript evidence in order to attempt spurious refutation. All of the more than 150 Messianic prophecies, precisely fulfilled by Jesus Christ's birth, ministry and death, are a case in point.

Those instances of divine revelation that were not prophetic, were either God's Self-revelation, who He is and what He wants, or doctrinal, the truths surrounding our existence and relationship to Him as our Sovereign Creator.

Why He chose to reveal Himself in this way rather than, say, ripping open the fabric of space-time and stepping through into our perception in some irrefutable and undeniable way, is His mercy.

As fallen creatures unable to meet the standard of righteous perfection that is necessary to dwell in His presence, God has ordained faith as the means to please Him. Faith in Himself and in His Son's death and resurrection in payment for our sin.

This has always been both tremendously good news, for those who believe, and utter condemnation for those who choose to disbelieve. Both sides of the fence dismiss our own works as either sufficient justification for reward, or sufficient cause for eternal judgment.

Belief is the key to salvation and condemnation (and He doesn't care what you think about that). This means that no matter how depraved you have been, you can literally come to Jesus for forgiveness and have life everlasting. To do this two factors must be present (not perfected). 

Sincerity - you must believe that He is with all your heart - and repentance - you must no longer act on the desire to do evil, but desire instead to obey His revelation.

This is where the prophets come in. By choosing to reveal Himself in ways that could be denied if a human heart were hard enough, we are given the opportunity to exercise faith, an attribute of human personhood provided by God as part of our standard ingredients.

But by believing what the prophets have recorded and has been preserved in Scripture, we demonstrate what King David exemplified, a heart after God. And that alone is what pleases Him.

It's not that this requires a blind leap of faith, for there is ample historical, judicial, and experiential evidence to bolster what has been written, but it does require faith.

Know this: there will come a time, according to these same prophets, when the opportunity for faith will end. God will make His existence, authority and power unmistakable and undeniable. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

But when that Day comes, those who have refused the clemency offered by believing now, will have no further opportunity to escape the judgment they deserve by having rejected Christ's immeasurable sacrifice on the Cross.

The prophets cannot be ignored with impunity.

The entire book of Hebrews, written by one of those prophets, exists so that we can know that.

Samuel

And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. (Hebrews 11:32-34, NKJV).

Prior to his birth, Samuel's mother, Hannah, was rebuked by Eli, the obese High Priest of Israel, for being drunk. He mistook fervent Spirit-led prayer for intoxication. His first of many recorded errors.

Years later, Eli fell off his stool and died from a stopped heart when he was told that the Ark of the Covenant had been lost to the Philistines in battle. Eli also raised corrupt and contemptible sons, who used their hereditary spiritual authority to extort from the people and besmirch the name of God.

Eli was not a good judge of character. 

But God is, and he rewarded faithful Hannah's prayer for a son with the birth of Samuel, whose name means God hears. She devoted her son from the womb to priestly service. At the age of three, she bundled him off to become, in essence, Eli's apprentice. 

Samuel grew into the man that Eli's own sons failed miserably to become, and became the single most powerful and righteous Judge of Israel.

He would also be the last Judge before the inauguration of the kingship through the humble-man-turned-megalomaniac, Saul.

We might picture Jewish Priests in many ways, but Samuel defies most all the stereotypes. He was a warrior who hacked to death a pagan king. He was a revolutionary who worked against the crazed and disobedient Saul. He was fiercely compassionate.

He was a devout man of prayer who felt compelled to intercede always for this fledgling Jewish realm, and at least one of the kingdoms he worked to subdue was his own under the unstable Benjamite, Saul.

But foremost among his many excellent qualities, Samuel was an obedient man of God. He listened to the One Who Hears, and such was his heart toward the Eternal One, that he grieved mightily when God relented to the people's base desire for a "king like the other nations." 

Samuel was unswerving in his conviction that the Sovereign of the Universe was also Sovereign of Israel, and he knew that anything other than this would be his people's eventual undoing. He was right.

What Samuel exampled through his many years of judgeship was an uncompromising steadfastness towards the things of God. He brooked no whining or moaning or excuses from anyone about anything. 

He understood what his LORD required and did it, even returning from Sheol (the place of the dead) to famously rebuke the apostate Saul.

Among other things, Samuel was also the product of faithful and loving parents. Hannah, we know, was a devoted believer, but so too was her husband, Elkanah ("possessed by God"), who tried to comfort his wife in her barrenness.

But to Hannah he would give a double portion, for he loved Hannah, although the LORD had closed her womb… [and] her husband said to her, “Hannah, why do you weep? Why do you not eat? And why is your heart grieved? Am I not better to you than ten sons?” (1 Samuel 1:5, 8, NKJV).

As an example of faith among many such examples in this chapter, Samuel shines with blazing intensity - a true hero of belief. From this perspective, his biography is perhaps best encapsulated by this verse:

Then Samuel said: “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, As in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice... (1 Samuel 15:22, NKJV).

David

And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. (Hebrews 11:32-34, NKJV).

David was the anointed king of ancient Israel, a shepherd boy who made good, who became a man after God's own heart.

He was also an adulterer and a murderer, an egotist, and a vengeful adversary.

He was the promised forebear of the Savior of the world, and the Sweet Psalmist of Israel.

And he was a broken-down, faithless, fool.

These biographical aspects of David, the Warrior King of Israel, are good news for us, who are likewise flawed, imperfect, and guilty.

Good news because it affirms God's willingness and ability to make the foolish things and fools of the world useful for His divine purposes, while simultaneously remaking us in the image of His Son, Jesus.

If you conduct a careful study of the individuals who comprise this Hebrews Hall of Faith, you see men and women not much different from you or me, albeit under different circumstances and times. Each of them exhibited obvious human failings coupled with the empowerment of divine grace. Each were used by God to fulfill His plan, but only after they came to the end of themselves and surrendered their lives to Him.

David, I believe, was knit together in his mother's womb precisely to be that leader who would shepherd God's people, Israel, through those vulnerable formative years as they emerged from a primitive tribal organism into a powerful city-state.

David laid the foundations of Jerusalem, and established a kingly line from which Christ Himself would one day emerge.

So beloved of God was David that throughout Israel's many years of subsequent failure and apostasy, long after David died, God spared the nation for My servant David's sake.

For all his weaknesses, David shines forth as an example of someone who was most effective and powerful when he thought the least of himself.

To this day, his writings in the Psalms express, through heartfelt lyricism, the agonies and ecstasies of life in this fallen world, and serve to comfort, encourage and edify men, women and children of God going through the same mountains and valleys of experience; the same kinds of losses, triumphs, betrayals, and tragedies that marked his life 3000 years before.

David lived a life of flawed faith, but it was a life of faith. He recognized from where his strength came, and to Whom his allegiance belonged.

When confronted with his egregious sins, he did not cover up or evade, he confessed them before his God and his people, and in doing so, provided an example for us to follow, especially in those times when we face our own Goliaths, Absaloms, and Bathshebas.

And what, I think, sets David apart perhaps more than anything else? His love for the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and his desire to walk in intimate fellowship with His Creator and Lord.

You can sense his longing and awe in his Psalms. You can sense his understanding of both the vastness and closeness of his God.

And when all is said and done, David went to his grave in faith, believing the promises God had given him and his nation. Believing in his God.

For that, above all else, is the hallmark of a person of faith.