Acts 26:1-32

“Why Should You Consider it Incredible?”

Paul stands before Agrippa and Festus and asks a very logical question. “Why should any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead?” This wasn’t just a logical question in the first century. It is still a logical question today.

Christ’s resurrection is of course what all of Christianity hinges on. No other religion even claims such an outrageous thing. There is no other human being in the history of mankind about which the claim is made that they rose from the dead never to die again. That is pretty incredible...unless...you believe in God.

If you don’t believe in God then of course all bets are off. This doesn’t mean that you are smarter or more clever than those who do believe in God. It just means that you believe in something else; perhaps your own eyes or intellect, or the words of some secular prophet. As G. K. Chesterton so eloquently put it: “When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.”

If you believe in God; if you believe in a God who created the heavens and the earth, a God who made man out of dust and breathed into him the breath of life, a God who is from everlasting to everlasting, who is all mighty, and who knows everything, then why indeed should you think is incredible that He raises the dead? It makes no sense to balk at that point.

One last observation. Paul said to Agrippa that he wished that everyone there would become what he was “except for these chains.” Leaving the room Agrippa said to Festus, “This man could have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar.” What they didn’t know was that Paul was free. In fact, he was likely the most free man in the room. The chains were a nuisance but they in no way meant that Paul wasn’t free. He was going to Rome because he had requested it. He requested it because God told him that was where he was going. They were walking out slaves to sin. Why should we consider it incredible that a man in chains can be more free than one whose chains are invisible?