People are bowing down to many gods today, just as they did in the ancient pagan world. It was these idolaters to whom Paul proclaimed, "that there is none other God but one. For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth (as there be gods many, and lords many). But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him" (I Corinthians 8:4-6).

In the modern world, the atheistic evolutionist worships the great god Chance in the shrine of Darwinism, while New Age pantheistic evolutionists attribute everything to Father Time and Mother Earth. The materialistic social Darwinists pay homage to the god Mammon and modern feminists adore the goddess Sophia. Animists sacrifice to demonic spirits and Hindu worshipers honor a thousand divinities. Popular celebrities speak patronizingly of the Man Upstairs and Muslims fight in the name of Allah. There are "gods many and lords many." So how is one to know which "god" is the true God, the Creator, Sustainer, and Judge of the whole creation? Which "god" is the God who is real, the one able to provide eternal salvation and everlasting life?

There is one infallible way to know—one sure test, and no other. The one God who can defeat death is the only God who can give life!

This was Paul's message to the intellectuals of antiquity, and it must be our uncompromising message today. "God that made the world and all things therein . . . giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; . . ."

And just who is that God, who made the world and gives life to all things?

He has not left us to wander about in ignorance of this all-important truth. "Because He hath appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead" (Acts 17:31).

There is one Man—only one Man—in all human history who has defeated death, has died and then risen again, never to die again. Since only the Creator of life could ever defeat death, He must be both God and man, the God-man, eternal God and perfect man, "declared to be the Son of God with power . . . by the resurrection from the dead" (Romans 1:4)

It is unfortunate that Easter has become so encumbered with many pagan notions (bunnies, eggs, spring festivals, etc.) and materialistic practices (Easter parades of spring fashions) that most people in western nations forget or ignore the grand truth that our Lord Jesus Christ is "risen from the dead and become the firstfruits of them that slept" (I Corinthians 15:20).

The death and resurrection of our Creator is no mere religious dogma requiring perfunctory attendance at church once a year, as many seem to think, but the most vital of all living realities. "I am He that liveth, and was dead;" said the resurrected Jesus; "and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death" (Revelation 1:18). Furthermore, the bodily resurrection of Christ can be shown to be the best-proved fact of history.

The Lord Jesus Christ, whose resurrection we acknowledge once every week, remembering the completion of both His work of creation and also His greater work of redemption, and then again in a very special way every year in the springtime when the earth itself awakens again to new life, is our great Creator, Savior, risen Lord, and soon-coming King. "Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him" (Psalm 2:12).