And this evening, let’s turn first to our New Testament reading, which comes from the book of Acts, chapter 9. And the reading will be verses 36 through 43. Acts 9, 36, to the end of the chapter. And let’s listen carefully to this because this is the very word of God.
Now there was in Joppa a disciple named Tabitha, which translated means Dorcas. She was full of good works and acts of charity. And in those days she became ill and died. And when they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room. Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, hearing that Peter was there, sent two men to him, urging him, please come to us without delay. So Peter rose and went with them. And when he arrived, they took him to the upper room. All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other garments that Dorcas had made while she was with them. But Peter put them all outside and knelt down and prayed And turning to the body, he said, Tabitha, arise. And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter, she sat up. And he gave her his hand and raised her up. Then, calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive. And it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. And he stayed in Joppa for many days with one Simon, a tanner.
And then for our Old Testament reading and the text for this evening’s sermon, please turn to 1 Kings chapter 17. And we will read verses 17 through 24. After this, the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill. And his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. And she said to Elijah, What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son. And he said to her, Give me your son. And he took him from her. took him from her arms and carried him into the upper chamber where he lodged and laid him on his own bed. And he cried out to the Lord. Oh Lord, my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourned by killing her son? Then he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the Lord. Oh Lord, my God, let this child’s life come into him again. And the Lord listened to the voice of Elijah. And the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper chamber into the house and delivered him to his mother. And Elijah said, See, your son lives. And the woman said to Elijah, Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.
Thus far, the reading of God’s word. Let’s. Ask his blessing upon it. Father, we read in both our New Testament reading and the Old Testament reading of the dead being restored to life. How your servant. Went into an upper room. and through your mighty power became the agents of the restoration of life. Now, as we consider this passage, we pray for your blessing. We pray for the help and the instruction and the illumination of your Holy Spirit to shed light on the words of scripture for us and to instruct us and to build us up in our faith and to show us your power and to exalt our Savior Jesus Christ. And we ask all these things in his name. Amen.
There was a practice in the Middle Ages, medieval times, where a knight would take an armored glove and throw it down at the feet of his opponent if he was wanting to challenge him to battle. That armored sort of glove was called a gauntlet. And that’s where we get the expression throwing down the gauntlet. A knight who wished to challenge another would throw his armored glove down at his opponent’s feet. And then, of course, the opponent would take up the gauntlet. And that meant he accepted the challenge. This was a formal challenge. It was a way of provoking a confrontation. Of course, we live in much more enlightened times, where we’ve learned to settle our differences without fighting. But back then, they settled everything with a fight. And that’s what knights would do. They would throw down. the gauntlet. We have that term, we use it metaphorically now. If someone challenges or provokes someone else, we’ll say that they’re throwing down the gauntlet.
Well, as we look at this passage, the second portion, the last portion of 1 Kings chapter 17, we have to remember that it occurs in larger context. And we could have looked at the whole passage as a unit, and in a sense it is a unit, but in chapter 17 of 1 Kings, God has withdrawn his prophet. from his people. Remember, he made that declaration. Elijah made that declaration when he appeared to Ahab the king. And he said there wouldn’t be dew or rain except by the word of the Lord.
And then God commanded Elijah to basically retreat. And there are some who have said that that was for Elijah’s protection because Jezebel, of course, was killing all the prophets of the Lord. I don’t think it was for Elijah’s protection. I don’t think Elijah needed protection from Jezebel. God commanded Elijah to withdraw into the wilderness because it was a symbolic act of him withdrawing his word. from the people. And even as he was sending a famine for bread upon the land by withholding dew and rain such that the people would suffer famine for a period of years until God in his mercy spoke and brought rain upon the earth, he was also causing a famine for hearing the word of the Lord. And that was symbolized by the fact that God was going to withdraw his prophet. And people wouldn’t even be able to inquire by him, wouldn’t even be able to petition the Lord through the prophet, because the prophet had gone away.
So you have this famine, not just for bread, but a famine for hearing the word of God. And that’s the worst kind of famine of all.
We read of the same thing in some of the other prophets of the Old Testament. But one commentator writing on this, speaking of the whole chapter as a unit, said this chapter is about listening to the word of Yahweh. It’s about listening to the word of Yahweh. The God of Israel stops speaking to his people, but starts speaking to Baal worshipers, and in doing so, shows that he is the God of the nations. But we’re considering just the last part of this chapter, and it focuses on Elijah’s raising this widow’s son. And something very important is happening when God, through his prophet Elijah, raised the widow’s son. It’s like God throwing down his gauntlet at the feet of the devil and challenging him, provoking him. Raising the widow’s son to life was the first blow in the Lord’s triumph over death and the grave.
” That’s the message of this passage from 1 Kings 17. Raising this widow’s son to life was the first blow, opening salvo, one person described it, in the Lord’s triumph over death and the grave. And so we’ll examine this passage under three points. The first is tragedy strikes, death comes to the house of this widow. Secondly, God’s prophet intervenes. And thirdly, and finally, Satan’s grip loosens. Tragedy strikes, God’s prophet intervenes, and Satan’s grip loosens. So first of all, the tragedy that strikes the home of this widow. Elijah, as we saw last time, he’s now situated not in the wilderness, but he’s in Zarephath. That’s a city, a prominent city in the nation or the region of Sidon. And he is being housed by this widow. He’s living in her home. And as he does so, even during this time of famine, where bread is scarce, not just in Israel, but also inside and in the surrounding countries, the Lord God Almighty is providing supernaturally for his prophet and the widow who’s hosting him in her home and her household, which to the best of our knowledge includes this son. We don’t know who else, but the Lord is providing. Remember that jar of flour and that Gar of oil continued to bring forth provision even in this time of famine.
And so our text begins after this, or more literally, after these things, verse 17, the tragedy strikes. And that tragedy is that the widow’s son becomes extremely sick. It’s not just a routine illness, it’s a very severe sickness of some kind, to the point that, as our ESV puts it, there was no breath left in him. To just put it more plainly, he stopped breathing. And whether there’s any ambiguity there as well, was it was he dead or was his breathing just becoming very weak or what, it seems pretty clear if you examine the rest of the passage, this young man had passed away. That’s why the woman speaks of the death of her son in verse 18. And verse 20, God, Elijah crying out to God asks, why have you brought this calamity by killing this woman’s son? And then in verse 21, His prayer is that the child’s life would come into him again. So his life had departed. This young man, the widow’s son, was clearly dead.
And in her grief, this widow attributed the death of her son to God’s judgment upon her. She was persuaded that her son had died because of her sins. Now, it’s a common and natural conclusion for people to reach when they experience some tragedy, to think that maybe it’s God’s judgment upon them. It’s very normal, very natural for people to think such things. They’re being punished. And so what we see her saying to Elijah in verse 18, where she says, what have you against me, O man of God? You can almost imagine the woman thinking, there are other widows here in Sidon. Why did you come to me? Why couldn’t you have gone to one of the others? You have come, she says to him, you have come to bring my sin to remembrance and cause the death of my son. In other words, the fact that the prophet of Yahweh was in her house, it kind of shone a spotlight on her. brought her sins to the attention of the Lord God, brought her under God’s scrutiny.
And it’s very normal, it’s very common for people in the midst of trials to ask questions like, what have I done to deserve this? One commentator made this, Helpful observation, he said, the Bible does not assume an inevitable cause and effect connection between sin and suffering, or between righteousness and blessing, but leaves room for suffering which is undeserved and, from a human point of view, unexplained. Think again of Job. Job never, as far as we’re aware, received an explanation as to why he suffered as greatly as he did. God never provided an explanation of that kind, and oftentimes he does not. Perhaps most of the time, he does not. But our minds can’t help but go to those questions about why is this happening to me? Or why is this happening to someone else? Even Jesus’ disciples asked such questions. In the ninth chapter of John, They encounter a man who was blind, and the disciples were puzzled because not only was he blind, but he had been born blind. He’d never seen in his life. John 9 verses 1 through 3 say, as he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth, and his disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? And Jesus’ answer is very instructive for us, even as we consider this passage from 1 Kings, because he told them, it was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.
So there wasn’t a connect the dots relationship between any particular sin of the man or his parents and the fact that he’d been born blind. It had been ordained by God and God was going to use it to display his power. And so in the incident with the death of this widow’s son, here’s another opportunity for the works of God to be displayed. Or thinking back to our passage from last week, here’s another opportunity for God to show his power in weakness when tragedy strikes.
So Elijah the prophet then intervenes, studying this passage. I came across something that I don’t typically see. Maybe you’ve heard of the literary structure called chiastic structure or chiasm. We see a lot of these things in the Bible. They’re actually pretty common, just sort of a quick review of what a chiasm is. It’s this literary structure wherein you have these parallel things, parallel items, and they’re in inverse order and They kind of even form a cross in the way you diagram them. They point to what’s in the middle. And so they have to use an analytical structure. They have sort of an A, B, C, D, C, B, A structure. And whatever’s there in the center is what the text is trying to point our attention to.
And I’ll admit, I’m not I’m not really skilled at finding these chiasms. There are some scholars who just find them everywhere. And maybe they really are there. But I think I saw one here. I think it helps us to see the point of this particular pericope, this particular passage of the scripture. Because I think this narrative does form a pretty clear chiasm. And without having provided a handout for you, I’m sorry. It goes like this. The prophet says, give me your son. He took the child from his mother. He carried the child up to the upper chamber. He prayed, and then he stretched himself upon the child three times. That’s the center of the chiasm. Then we go back. He prayed again. He brought the child down from the upper chamber. He gave the child back to his mother, and he spoke again, this time saying, see, your son lives.
Looks like a chiasm to me. And if it is, the text is pointing us to this act, this strange act that Elijah did by stretching himself out on the child three times. The passage centers on this mysterious action. And it seems to me that you could almost call it a sacramental action. In the sense that, what does our catechism say the definition of a sacrament is? A sacrament is a visible sign representing the blessings or the benefits of Christ. And that’s what Elijah is doing. It’s not as if God needed Elijah to do this in order to raise the widow’s son from the dead. But he did this as a symbolic act, even if the act wasn’t witnessed by anyone else. It’s witnessed by us every time we read this passage in God’s Word. Elijah’s body, Elijah’s living body covered the dead body of the child as he stretched himself out on this child. And it’s a portrayal of death being overcome by life. Elijah prayed, he stretched himself out upon the child three times, he prayed again, and the Lord heard his prayer and answered, and the child’s life was restored. So God’s prophet intervenes.
And before we go on to that final point, this passage does teach us something very important about the human soul. It teaches us that the human soul lives on after death. There are some philosophies and even religious perspectives that teach that at death the soul just simply ceases to exist, that we just go into oblivion. But that is not the biblical doctrine of the soul. Scripture shows that the soul lives on after death.
And we see that in the fact that Elijah prays that this child’s soul would return, that his life would return. It went somewhere. It didn’t cease to be. It doesn’t cease to exist. The boy’s soul departed, but it was not annihilated. And so it is with all of us. Each one of us. has a soul that is immortal. It cannot die, it will not die. At least it won’t cease to exist. Our souls, each one of us, will either live forever in glory with Christ because of Christ and for his sake, or the soul will burn forever in hell. never completely being destroyed, but in a constant and eternal state of dying, as Jesus describes it, a place where their fire is not quenched and their worm doesn’t die. So our souls are indestructible in that sense. Scripture teaches us that, and this passage illustrates it for us.
The glory of this passage is that we see the grip of Satan on the human soul being loosened. And that’s our third and final point. Satan’s grip loosens. The text tells us that the Lord listened to the prayer of Elijah. And it says that then when Elijah prayed, the child’s life returns. His soul, it’s the Hebrew word nefesh, his soul came into him again. Now, our ESV Bible, as well as other English versions, say that he revived. But what it literally says there is that he lived. He lived.
Just as Tabitha in that upper room when Peter went in to her and called her back into the land of the living, This young man lived, and there was an immediate tangible effect in our passage from Acts. It said that many believed in the Lord because Tabitha had been restored to life. They knew that young lady was dead. And after the apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ came in, and through the power of the Holy Spirit that had been conferred upon him, he raised Tabitha from the dead. Elijah raised this widow’s son from the dead. And as a result, just as people believed in Peter’s day because he raised Tabitha from the dead, this woman’s faith was either strengthened or perhaps created in the first place. She believed.
Verse 24, the woman said to Elijah, now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is true. So that was the immediate effect. Elijah restores the woman’s son to her. See, your son lives, he says. And she then believed the word of the Lord in the mouth of Elijah.
But underlying that, what we have here is the first breach in the fortress that is death, the first breach in that formidable fortress, the grave. This event is the first time in the Bible, it’s the first time in human history that a dead person is restored to life. We’re told in Hebrews 2 that Satan has the power of death. And in this passage, Satan, who has the power of death, suffered his first loss. Remember, when he came to our first parents, recall the lie that he told. Because they’d been told, don’t eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden. And the day you eat of it, you shall surely die. And Satan came along, and he told that lie. He said, you shall not surely die.
And then the genealogy in Genesis chapter 5. as it rehearses the generations of Adam again and again and again. What does it say? And he died. And he died. And he died. Satan’s lie was, you shall not surely die. And Genesis 5 is a rebuke to Satan, because Adam died, Seth died, Enosh died, all the way down the line. You know, the only one that didn’t was Enoch, but that’s because God took him. He was translated, is the expression we use. But in Genesis chapter 5, Satan is proven to be a liar.
But death was Satan’s goal. When he came to deceive the man and the woman and get them to eat the fruit that had been forbidden to them, his goal was death. His goal, his intention was to mar and to destroy the image of God. He hated God, he hates God, and he wants to do anything he can to be an affront to God. And one of the greatest ways to do that is to destroy his image, the image of God that’s found in man. And so in that sense, he achieved his goal. He convinced the man and the woman to sin, Death came into the world through sin.
Death can be thought of as Satan’s house. And it had never been robbed before. But in this passage, Satan’s house is robbed. A soul that had gone to death is brought back. And not only that, Not only is this the first breach in the fortress of death, but this initial defeat of Satan took place on Satan’s home turf. You know it’s bad enough to lose in a sports game, but it’s even worse when you lose at home. Where you’re supposed to have an advantage, the home field advantage. Satan loses on his home field here.
What do I mean by that? Elijah’s living in the country of Sidon. Zarephath was in Sidon. And, of course, you know that one of the chief gods of the Sidonians was Baal. And part of the reason all this misery has come upon the people of Israel is because they had started worshipping Baal. But Baal wasn’t the Sidonians’ only god. They had a number of other gods. And one of them was called Mot. Baal was a fertility god. Maat was the god of death. And in fact, the Sidonians and other Baal worshipers, they would pray, they’d make their offerings to Baal and expect and hope that in return for their offerings and their service that Baal would grant them a fruitful crop that year. And anytime a fruitful crop didn’t come, their theology was, well, Mot took Baal prisoner for a while. So evidently, Baal was sometimes susceptible to being captured and locked up by Maat. And that was their explanation for why crops might fail one year, or why there might be a famine.
And in his supposed territory, the supposed territory of Maat, death is defeated for the first time. And the message that Yahweh is sending through this is that life and death, fertility and famine have absolutely zero to do with Baal or Maat. God had declared through Elijah, there shall be neither dune nor rain these years except by my word. That’s how chapter 17 opened. no dew nor rain, period of drought, and therefore a period of famine, except by my word.” And God says, and by the way, I’m done speaking for a while. I’m withdrawing my profit. There will be famine, and there’s nothing Baal can do about it. And at the same time, your false god, Maat, can’t do anything to stop me from defeating death. God loves to show the nations the impotence of their gods, their idols. But think about it. Until that day, the day when the widow’s son was raised, until that day, Satan had never seen death undone. It had never happened. This was a first. In effect, God had thrown down the gauntlet. And because Satan is desperate, because he’s hate-filled, and he has nothing to lose, he takes up the gauntlet, but he cannot win.
Life from the dead would happen again through the ministry of Elisha. Elisha’s gonna raise the son of another woman during his ministry. And there’ll be yet another incident of life from the dead in the Old Testament. With the coming of Christ, numerous times the dead are brought back to life. Jesus Christ, the Lord of life, even gave authority to his disciples to raise the dead. When he sent them out to minister, he said, heal the sick, raise the dead. And we have no reason to believe that that didn’t actually happen.
Then the decisive blow against death, of course, was the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, the day of resurrection. Christ himself rose from the grave, never to die again. And in the words of that hymn by Isaac Watts, speaking of the Lord’s day, This is the day the Lord has made. It says, today he rose and left the dead and Satan’s empire fell. And God who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us up by his power.
Yes, Satan is described as having the power of death. Scripture says that. It describes him in that way. But in the revelation to John, the risen Christ announces, I have the keys of death and Hades. It’s like he’s dangling the keys before Satan. Oh, did you lose these? They’re mine now. And in the end, death itself will be destroyed. Resurrection life will be triumphant. Death will be completely defeated and finally destroyed. Death shall be no more. Neither shall be mourning, nor shall there be crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things will have passed away.
That’s what this passage teaches us. Here, God was just throwing down the gauntlet, beginning a war that he is destined to win. And all that’s because of the person and work of our mighty Savior, Jesus Christ, the Lord.
Let’s pray. Lord, we thank you for this account of victory over death. And thank you for the promise. that it leaves us with, the promise to which we look forward, the promise which has assured us through the resurrection of Christ. Lord, we praise you that you are able to raise the dead, to bring life from the dead. Even as we read in our call to worship this morning, we who are dead in sins and trespasses, you have made alive in Christ Jesus. How we praise you for our Savior. And we praise you that you are and will be the victor. And thank you that in Christ, we too shall be victorious. We pray all these things with thanksgiving. And we give you glory in Jesus name. Amen.