It's the great message, isn't
it? It's the great message. The Lord
Jesus, put to death because of our sins, raised, as Romans 4.25
says, because of our righteousness, our justification. put to death,
delivered up for our offences, and raised again for our justification. The resurrection of the Lord
Jesus is what is preached, isn't it? It's what they preached in
Jerusalem. They preached the resurrection
from the dead, and it's what the Lord Jesus preached. He preached
it at the tomb of Lazarus, He says to his disciples, and that
night before he died, he says, because I live, you shall live
also. God's children, in Luke 20, verse
36, are called by the Lord Jesus, the children of the resurrection. That is what That is what the
end is, isn't it? That's the goal. That's the end. That's the living hope that Peter
talks about. That's the faith of God's elect. It's the faith that God gives
them. Titus 1, we have a great description of faith. It's the
faith that comes from God. Paul, a servant of God, an apostle
of Christ Jesus, according to the faith of God's elect and
acknowledging the truth, which is after godliness, in the hope
of eternal life. And then I love these words,
which God, who cannot lie, God who cannot lie, and it's what
he promised. It's promised by God who cannot
lie, promised before the foundation of the world. And it's a wonderful
way that Paul begins this famous, famous chapter in 1 Corinthians,
because he describes the Gospel, doesn't he? So this is the Gospel. God's children are born again
by the Gospel, and when they're born again by the Gospel, they
have that living hope. They are people who have the
faith of God's elect. It's what they receive, and it's
what they stand in. It's what they are saved by,
because the real Gospel declares the real Lord Jesus. And it's
what he's preached, and it's preached as first important. is received by God's people. You see, it's received because
God organises the reception. It's received because God gives
life to dead souls. For I deliver that unto you,
first of all, which I also received. Paul didn't learn his Gospel
from men. Four times in the Scriptures
it says that Paul met the Lord Jesus. He met Him on the road
to Damascus. He met him four times. In Acts 9, Acts 18, 9 and 10
he is told to these Corinthians, you preach on here brother Paul,
you're getting persecuted, you're getting clobbered, you preach
on in Corinth. because God says, I have many
people in this city. Wherever the Gospel is preached,
it is preached because God has sent it and because God has many
people in that city. And the Lord met Paul again in
Acts 22 and Acts 23. So he met him at least four times. And in 2 Corinthians 10, he actually
is taken up to heaven where no doubt he had visions of things
that he couldn't explain. But this Gospel is of first importance,
isn't it? That he was buried, verse 4,
that he rose again the third day. You see, the Gospel is a
Gospel which is according to the Scriptures. Paul didn't invent
something new. What he did is when he says according
to the Scriptures, the only Scriptures he has to talk about are the
Old Testament Scriptures. And the Old Testament Scriptures
are full of the glory of the Lord Jesus. And the Old Testament
scriptures are full of the glory of resurrection. That's what
Job believed, didn't he? Job was looking forward to what? He knew he suffered in the most
extraordinary ways, didn't he? Our friend Job. But what was
he looking forward to? He says, for I know that my,
this is 1925, I know that my Redeemer lives. I say that Job may have been
the first writings in our scriptures, maybe 1500 years before the Lord
Jesus. Job says, I know that my Redeemer
liveth, means he lives and he lives and he keeps on living,
and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth, and
though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh, in
my flesh, I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and mine
eyes shall behold, and not another, though my reins be consumed within
me." He said earlier in chapter 14, he said, And verse 13, Oh, that you would
hide me in the grave, that you would keep me secret until your
wrath be passed, and you would appoint me a set time and remember
me. And he talks about that change
that shall come. If a man dies, shall he live
again? all the days of my appointed
time will I wait till my change come." You see, again and again
in this chapter, the Lord Jesus, I mean the Holy Spirit, speaks
of the resurrection and he speaks of people dying as falling asleep. He says of this 500 who witnessed
the Lord Jesus at one time, Most of them alive. He's saying, probably
25 years after the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, if you doubt
me, you Corinthians, just hop on a boat, go across there, just
a short distance to Israel. And there are 500 of them out
there who saw him just at one time. And you can go and interview
500 people. And you will have the witness
of all of them. But the witness of the scriptures
is even more powerful. But it says that God's people
fall asleep. I don't know about you, but the
older I get, the more I enjoy sleep. Sleep is something that's
delightful. One of the wonderful things about
falling asleep is it's like a little miracle that happens every night,
isn't it? Beth Day tosses and turns on
a pillow. I toss and turn occasionally, not so often these days. I'm
normally so tired at the end of the day. But it's just remarkable,
isn't it? You're sort of reading and your
head falls on your pillow. Can you ever remember falling
asleep? You just do, don't you? And it's
a delightful thing. The doctors say that when we
grow our bodies get longer while we sleep, we stretch out. All
sorts of amazing things happen. It's a place of rest and it's
a place of restoration. And God, again and again, for
God's children who likens death to sleep. At least three times
in this one chapter he talks about people who have fallen
asleep. God's children cannot die, they
fall asleep. And one of the great things about
this Gospel, this Gospel saves the most unlikely and the most
rotten of sinners. Isn't it a great Gospel that
saves the worst of sinners you could possibly imagine and the
most unlikely sinner. The most unlikely sinner to be
saved in all of Israel 2000 years ago was a bloke called Saul of
Tarsus. He was riding tall and riding
proud. and he's not fit to be called
an apostle. He says he persecuted the Church of God, a great evident
sinner. There are great evident sinners
when God causes them to see what they are. See, grace and the
real Gospel calls out the worst of sinners and they see themselves
as the worst of sinners and they also see themselves as people
who, as Paul so often talks about himself, he's died, he no longer
lives, and it's Christ lives in him, and it's a beautiful
verse, isn't it? Verse 10. He says, by the grace of God,
I am what I am. By the grace of God, I am what
I am. in his flesh, nothing but sin. By the grace of God, nothing
but a saint." And even his activities, he can't attribute to himself. You look down there at the last
part of that verse. He said, abundantly more than
they're all, more evidently poor, witnessed and planted churches
than the other apostles. They all had their appointed
work to do and no one else could do their appointed work. But
when it came to writing the New Testament and it came to preaching
to the Gentile world, no one was caused to labour more than
Paul. So what does he say even about
his labours? He says, Yet not I. He's not even going to boast
when he has so much to boast about. He's not going to boast
about what he did, what activity, who was the motivation, who gets
all the praise, who gets all the glory, but the grace of God. You see, his activities are activities
that are seen to be wrought by God and not by Paul. And that's how he wants his record
to be left. So the real Gospel comes It comes
at God's appointed direction. It comes testifying to God's
Son. It comes testifying of a successful
Saviour, in verse 3, how that Christ died for our sins according
to the Scriptures. He died for our sins and He put
them away and He completely put them away forever and ever. And
He was buried and He rose again on the third day. and pull a
little stripe. great activity and the great
activity of God's servants throughout the scriptures is to be a witness,
to be a faithful witness to the Lord Jesus. I've often related
that story to you about the fellow dying and the preacher in America
going to see him on his deathbed and he asked him how things were
with his soul and the old fellow looked up from his deathbed and
he said, if you've told me the truth, all is well. If you've told me the truth about
who the Lord Jesus is, if you've told me the truth about who I
am, if you've told me the truth about what the Scriptures say
about Him, all is well. You see, in those verses Paul
is adamant that they are faithful witnesses because they're testifying,
verse 15, that God raised up Christ. For if the dead rise
not, then Christ wasn't raised. And if Christ is not raised,
your faith is vain. Your faith is an empty faith. It has no basis, no foundation,
goes nowhere. And you are still in your sins. I haven't got rid of God and
His judgement. then they which have fallen asleep
are perished. There is no hope for our brothers
and sisters who have gone before us. And in verse 19, if in this
life only we have hope in Christ, if it's only for this age, if
it's only for this time, if it's only to make us moral now, we
are of all men most miserable. The pains that God's people have
to put up with, the travails that they have, the sufferings
that they have, which are the special sufferings of God's people
in this world, are only going to be seen, to be valued and
to be seen in their right context from Heaven's perspective. What
would Heaven's saints be saying to us now? What would they be
saying? They'd just be chanting one tune,
wouldn't they? They'd be singing those songs
of heaven. They would say that he's far more amazing than you
can possibly imagine. He's far more faithful. He's
far more glorious. He's far more successful. He's
worthy of more faith. He's worthy of more love. You
are so blessed. You are so blessed. to know this
real Lord Jesus. Any amount of suffering in this
world is all going to be swallowed up. And then he goes on to talk
about the Lord Jesus having been risen from the dead. He's the
first fruits. When you go out to harvest your
crop of wheat and you pick that first bunch of grain and you
have it in your barn and you look out in those fields and
you know that it's just the beginning. He is the first fruits of them
that slept. For since by man came death,
by man also came resurrection from the dead. In Adam all die. He must reign, says verse 25,
until all his enemies are under his feet. And as I looked at
Isabel there the other day and saw all that pain and suffering,
it is amazing, isn't it? He reigns until he's put all
enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be
destroyed is death. What an enemy to mankind is death. We are marching toward it, we
have no power, no matter what medicine does, no matter what
time machines might tell us that we can think we can do, death
is where we are going. That's an enemy and he has destroyed
it. He has destroyed it because He
is a King and because He reigns. Grace has humbled. Grace has
made anew. And grace causes God's people
to look beyond the things of this world, to look to a resurrection,
to look to a future. We shall not all sleep, but we
shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling
of an eye, for the trumpet shall sound, the dead shall be raised
incorruptible, and we shall be changed. We shall be changed. Next week we sow into the earth,
don't we, a corrupt body. But it's not sown without a hope,
is it? It's not someone without an amazing
hope. One day, one day, if you stand
beside that grave long enough, if you stand beside my grave
long enough, one day that earth will open up and out will come
not something that was sown in corruption, but it's going to
be raised incorruptible, never ever to corrupt again. It's beautiful,
isn't it? There's only been that one great
resurrection from the dead, but what a picture it paints. Just
think of what it was like on that Sunday morning. You could
walk with You could talk with him. You could be taught by him. You could sit at the table with
him. You could break bread with him. You could put your hand where
the nails were. You could put your hand in his
side. You could touch him. You could
walk with him. You could do it despite all of
what your flesh would sigh, couldn't you? Nothing in this world, despite
what the Lord Jesus had said, nothing seemed to prepare the
apostles for resurrection. It's really sad, isn't it, when
Christians are ashamed of the supernatural. What a remarkable
thing. The whole basis of Christianity
is something that you cannot explain, you cannot expect it
to be, but how glorious is it. that you can walk with Him and
you can talk with Him. And the remarkable thing is that
when He chose to show Himself, and He only ever chose to show
Himself to the redeemed, there is not one instant of Him showing
Himself to people who are not His own. But when He shows Himself,
what do they see? They say the real Lord Jesus,
and He looked like He did when He walked this earth, that He
had that glorious incorruptible body. That's the future, isn't
it? That's the Gospel that Paul proclaimed. That's the Gospel that humbled
Paul, that exposed him as a sinner. It's the Gospel that caused him
to see that his life was a life of grace from beginning to end. It's a Gospel that caused him
to see that God had made him what he is and God was working
in him and through him. And it's a Gospel that caused
him to look in great hope and in great expectation. And it
was a Gospel that was founded on truth, not on the suppositions
of men. It's a Gospel that's founded
on God. confirming the truth of what he says by the reality
of what he does. He does it again and again. He
confirms his word by reality. And he does it so his people
would have trust, would have faith, would have belief, would
just rest in the fact that he who has done all that will continue
to do it in our lives and in our times. Let's pray.