Acts 26:8 Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead? I. INCREDULITY HAS MANY CAUSES AND JUSTIFIES ITSELF WITH MANY REASONS. It has never seen a resurrection, and it thinks it believes only what it sees. There have been plenty of funerals, but nothing more, so far as its experience goes. Some appear to have merely the rudiments of a soul, and are scarcely conscious of superiority to the brute creation. One such said to a minister, "Your preaching does me no good; I have no soul; I want no one to talk to me about an imaginary hereafter; I shall die like a dog." Others shrink from the righteous retributions of the future. They resist the evidences of judgment, and fight the thought of justice. The sophistries of self-sufficiency; the solicitations of curious and overweening ambition; the deceptions of pride; the superstitions of the ignorant and credulous; the whisperings that emanate from the father of lies; all marshal their forces to crucify hope. There are those who count the thought of resurrection too good to be true. Others dwell so narrowly upon the mechanical and material side of life, that they forget the spirit. Natural science and its literature are fettered with earthly limitations. II. NATURAL RELIGION BALANCES THE IMPROBABILITY WITH ITS OWN PROBABILITY. Negative evidence is worthless. Fifty millions of people did not see Garfield shot, but they could not clear Guiteau. Love is not measured with a yard stick, or focused under a microscope, but that does not breed scepticism. The soul expects immortality, and hungers for it with a Divine and deathless famine. Analogies prefigure it. It seems within the boundary of the thinkable to say that the Creator has power to recreate. It taxes no one's faith to believe that the watchmaker is able to repair his handiwork. Probabilities prevail on a priori grounds. Pantheism with its impersonal mysticism, has its Nirvana. Hellenic verse has its Elysian fields. The Arctic Circle has its Walhalla. The antipodal aborigines have their happy hunting grounds; and Judaea had its Paradise. III. CHRIST BRINGS MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS TO CORROBORATE AND CONFIRM THE HOPES OF BENIGHTED PEOPLES. It is very common to demonstrate that certain things are impossible, but that amounts to nothing in the presence of facts. While science was showing that the Sirius could not carry coal enough to take her over the Atlantic, she crossed. While men were proving that lightning rods, railroads, gas, telegraphs, cables, and telephones were visionary, inventors were realising their dreams. No fair and honest man can discredit the witness of the best book on earth, nor can he invalidate the testimony of the only sinless man who ever lived. What does this history and this witness prove? Christ answered the hopes of the patriarchs. Job stood on the chasm between the quick and the dead, saying, "I know that my Redeemer lives." Christ promised to rise again. "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will build it up again." The empty tomb is evidence. The soldiers could not account for it. The Romans were baffled. The Jews were nonplussed. The disciples were most amazed of all. Witnesses testified to what they knew. Their testimony could not be silenced. There is absolutely nothing to discredit their story. Their testimony convinced the prosecution. Within fifty days three thousand men changed front. The Sabbath is evidence of the resurrection. The first day of every week is an Easter. Christendom is evidence. It is a nineteenth century miracle. (J. B. Donaldson.) Parallel Verses KJV: Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?WEB: Why is it judged incredible with you, if God does raise the dead? |
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