Now if Christ be preached that
he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is
no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection
of the dead, then is Christ not risen? And if Christ be not risen,
then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain? Yea,
and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified
of God, that he raised up Christ, whom
he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if the
dead rise not, then is not Christ raised. And if Christ be not
raised, your faith is vain. You are yet in your sins. That
they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in
this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most
miserable. But now is Christ risen from
the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept. Now this church, if we review
a little bit, all the issues that Paul addresses in this letter,
this church had a lot of problems that he dealt with. In this first
letter to the church at Corinth, Paul rebukes them very harshly
in each case Then the matter of them boasting in different
preachers boasting in fleshly men Who they believed the gospel
under Saying I'm of Paul and I'm of Apollos Paul asked this
question. Are you not carnal? Are you not
a as carnal men. In other words, he said, it's
like you don't even know the Lord. You're envying and strife
and division over fleshly things. It seems as though you don't
even know Christ. He said that to them, and that's
a pretty harsh accusation. In the matter of fornication
among some of them, Paul said that even lost people, aren't
as messed up as you are. He said, things are named among
you that aren't even named among the Gentiles, among the lost. They had messed up the ordinance
of the Lord's table so badly that Paul said, it'd be better
if you didn't even meet than for you to do what you're doing
now. Again, harsh, harsh rebuke. Here some were saying that the
resident resurrection of the dead was not true. They were
skeptical they were Unbelieving Concerning the resurrection
of the dead Paul again is harsh in his rebuke of them in verse
36 of chapter 15 he says you fool and Look at verse 35, but
some man will say, how are the dead raised up and with what
body do they come? In other words, if you've been
in the grave for a couple of years, you're probably not looking
too good, smelling too good. So people, I'm sure that they
mocked like they did. Much of the truth of the gospel
is usually mocked as well as not believed. Paul says you're an idiot. That's
literally what he said. You're an idiot for saying that.
If you look up that word, you're stupid, you're an idiot, you're
a non-thinking person. You have no ability to reason.
So harsh, harsh rebuke. And rightly so, because the gospel's
at stake here. The gospel's at stake. The only
hope for a sinner is at stake. And Paul is also very thorough
in this passage regarding the ramifications of believing the
way that they did. It's evident that they had not
thought it through to say that there's no resurrection. Or at
least Paul assumes that they hadn't thought it through because
that's what he does here for them. He thinks it through. And
he details the consequences of not believing there's a resurrection. And this may seem familiar. Paul speaks first in verse two
of the resurrection of Christ because all of our hope hinges
upon that, upon him being raised from the dead. It's clear from
the text here, from all of it, that the ones who said there
was no resurrection, they didn't reject the gospel entirely, or
at least they thought they didn't. In their own minds, they weren't
denying the gospel. They considered themselves believers,
But they couldn't wrap their minds around the idea that dead
people rose from the dead. And part of their problem with
that is dealt with there in verse 35, where we read, some will
say, how are the dead raised up and with what body did they
come? But they didn't realize what they were saying. They didn't
reject the gospel completely. They didn't leave. They didn't
say this is all foolishness. They confessed to believe the
gospel. But this thing of resurrection
from the dead, We can't go that far. I just can't get my mind
around that. Well, there's a lot of examples
of that kind of thinking. How many people say, well, I
believe the gospel, but this thing of God being absolutely
sovereign and doing what he wants to with it, that's not fair.
I can't get my mind around that part of it. That kind of thinking
is very common. Believe the gospel, you know,
I'm one of y'all I'm a Christian but this part about Christ dying
for his sheep and only his sheep I Can't go that far Well, you
just destroyed the gospel just like these people did so this
was a common way of thinking it is now Paul is teaching them
here in that they did reject the gospel entirely. They just
didn't understand that they did. If they insisted on denying the
resurrection, then everything's out the window, just as it is
if you refuse to believe that God is sovereign. If you think
everything's up to sinful man, it's all up to you. Your destiny
is in your hand. Well, then we're all going to
hell. It's just obvious that we are.
If Christ died, if he came down here with the intent purpose
of saving everybody, of shedding his precious blood and saving
everybody, that was his intent, and he failed, we're all goners.
We're all going to hell. And that's what Paul, that's
the way he's reasoning with them here. They apparently thought that
the gospel could be true without the resurrection part, but Paul's
telling them in no uncertain terms that they're wrong about
that. And again, the first and foremost, that of the most importance
here in consequence of what they said is that Christ is not raised. And really that should settle
the matter right there. They believed that Christ rose
from the dead, being the son of God, but they didn't believe
that they would because, you know, it's unbelievable. You
know, the same reason people didn't believe Noah. It's gonna
rain, and it never had rain before. It's not only gonna rain for
the first time ever, but it's gonna rain so much, you're dead
if you don't get in the ark. Nobody believed it. It was unbelievable. The gospel's unbelievable unless
God gives you faith. You're not gonna believe it. Abraham said, unless they believe
the prophets, unless God gives them faith to believe the gospel,
they're not gonna believe the one who came from the dead and
told them about it. They're not gonna believe him.
If somebody literally came back from the dead that we know is
dead, and they came back from the dead and said, here's what's
happening, you wouldn't believe him if you don't believe God.
If you don't believe God, why would you believe a man, dead
or alive, whatever? What difference does it make?
We must believe God. We must hear from God and God's
got to give us faith to believe him. Believing, faith is not
believing there is a God. Satan believes there is a God.
Faith is believing God. Faith is not believing everything's
gonna work out okay. Faith is not believing that God's
gonna do what you want Him to do. Faith is believing God's
gonna do what He said He would do. It's believing who He is,
who He said He is. It's believing Him concerning
what you are before Him, a sinner lost and hopeless without His
grace. It's believing how He saves sinners
by the sacrifice of His Son. So that should render the matter
settled right there. If the dead are not raised, then
Christ is not raised. If he can rise from the dead,
he can raise you from the dead. But if that's not something that
happens, then Christ is not raised. You're calling the Lord Jesus
Christ a fraud. Because he said, turn with me
please to Mark chapter 10. Mark 10, 32. Mark 10, 32, and they were in
the way going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus went before them, and
they were amazed. And as they followed, they were
afraid. Jerusalem wasn't a safe place for them to go. And they
knew it, and he took again the 12 and began to tell them what
things should happen unto him, saying, behold, we go up to Jerusalem,
and the Son of Man shall be delivered unto the chief priests, and unto
the scribes, and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver
him to the Gentiles, and they shall mock him, and shall scourge
him, and shall spit upon him, and shall kill him. And the third
day he shall rise again." He pulled them aside and said, he
knew they were afraid. He knew that they were confused.
Why are we going to Jerusalem of all places? Don't these other
people that don't want to kill us need to hear the gospel today?
But he told him what had to happen, very specifically. And hence Paul's observation
in verse 14. Look at verse 14 again. If Christ
be not risen, then is our preaching vain and your faith is also vain. I'm preaching a person. Paul
said we preach Christ and Him crucified. And if that person
is a fraud, that everything I say is in vain, it's empty, it's
useless. And you believe, salvation is
believing a person. Faith just has one object, and
it's the son of God. The scriptures are written that
you might believe who he is, that he is who he is, and that
you might have life through his name. Your hope of salvation
is a person. And you're calling that person
a fraud by saying there's no resurrection. You're condemning
yourself to hell. You've believed in vain. There's
no hope for you. Well, they'd say, well, that's
not what we're saying. But Paul corrected him on that.
If I told you, if you believe Christ died for everybody, then
there's no savior. You'd say, that's not what I'm
saying, but you are saying that. You're saying that God's son
came here to accomplish something and failed to accomplish it.
There's all of our hope. If he's not God, then we're not
saved. If he doesn't do as he pleases
in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of this earth,
so that none can stay his hand or say unto him, what doest thou?
Then this whole book's a fraud. I'll see you in hell. This is how it is when you deny
any single truth from the Word of God. It all goes together. It all stands or falls as a whole.
You say, well, I believe all that, but I don't know about
that. No, no, there are millions of people that consider themselves
Christians, and yet they can't say, go so far as to say God
chose a people from the foundation of the world. But wait a minute.
That's what God says, though. That's the thing. So you're calling
him a fraud. Paul wrote, I thank God for you,
brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning
chosen you to salvation. He said to his disciples, you
haven't chosen me, I've chosen you. The scripture says that salvation
is not of him that willeth. You can name your church Free
Will Baptist if you want to. You can preach a free will message,
but there is no free will. There is a will though, and it's
depraved and it hates God. It's never gonna do anything
right. You need to be saved from your will, not by your will.
It's not of him that willeth, it's not of him that runneth
or striveth, but it's of God that showeth mercy. He says,
I'll have mercy on whom I'll have mercy. Your response to
that is, God have mercy on my soul. Lord, if you will, you
can make me whole. You can save me. A God like that
can save you. A God like that can have mercy
on whoever he wants to have mercy on. I'd come to him for mercy
if I were you. Oh, I believe the gospel, but
I can't swallow this thing of God being absolutely sovereign.
He can't violate our free will. Read the Bible, read the Bible. Before you go to hell, read the
Bible one time, and then talk to me about your free will. You may not realize it, but you're
consigning all of us to hell when you say things like that.
You just took away the only hope that sinners had. You made God
a liar, God said that he hardened Pharaoh's heart and dropped him
in hell just because he wanted to. He wanted to make his power
known in this earth, and so he did that. He has the right to
do that. He did that. Oh, I can't believe
that. Most people can't even believe
that God sent a hurricane and killed a bunch of people. Who
did that then? Is Satan controlling this world? I don't think so. Again, read
the word of God before you go to hell, read it one time. And
let's talk about who's in charge. Who made everything, who runs
everything, who made everybody and runs everybody. Read it one
time before you go to hell. And then let's talk about it. If Christ doesn't have power
on earth to forgive sins, then he's a liar. He said, I have
the authority on this earth to forgive whoever sins I want to. And religion denies that every
time they meet together. Quit listening to them. They're
the frauds, not the son of God. He said, I decide whose sins
are forgiven in this world. And if that's not true, then
not only is he an imposter, but nobody's sins are forgiven. If
he don't have that power, who does? You? Some child molesting
priest somewhere? This is too important to be nice
about it. If Christ can't do that, and
if he doesn't do that, then nobody's sins are forgiven because no
man can come to Christ except the Father draw them to him. With men, he said, it is impossible. Who can be saved? The disciples
said. With men, it's impossible. The only way it's possible is
if God does it. Well, so you want to boast about
your free will that God can't do this and can't do that unless
you let him? You just consigned every one of us to hell. That's
what Paul's teaching right here in our text. Your faith is vain, my preaching
is vain, the word is vain, it's all vain. And there's no hope for men. You say you believe the gospel,
but this thing of Christ dying only for his elect is not fair.
I can't believe that. That's not fair. Then you don't
believe the gospel. You say you do, but you don't.
You do not. You don't believe Christ when
he said, I lay down my life for my sheep, and they shall never
perish. He doesn't say I lay down my
life for my sheep, and I sure do want them to come to me. No,
he says, my sheep hear my voice and they follow me. And I give
unto them eternal life and they shall never perish. And he turned
to the Pharisees and said, you don't believe me because you're
not my sheep. That's pretty clear. John chapter
10, if anybody wants to read the Bible that hasn't done that. If Christ was a failure on Calvary,
then we have no savior. He came and He redeemed everybody
He came to redeem. He said, my word comes down like
the rain from heaven, and it don't go back up until it accomplishes
exactly what I set it to accomplish. Well, what about all the millions
that go to hell? You think God's surprised by that? You think
He's a stranger to throwing people in hell? Who is putting them
there then? We're gonna have to believe God.
That's the thing, whether we like it or not, we're gonna have
to believe God concerning who he is and what he did, what he
accomplished on Calvary, and why, and where he is right now. You don't believe the gospel
if you don't believe these things. Faith in a Jesus that did not
accomplish what he came to accomplish is vain faith, and you and I
are goners. were goners. The resurrection is the proof
that Christ's death on Calvary was victorious. If there's no
resurrection, then we can't know that. Christ's death on Calvary
was victorious. He accomplished everything that
the Father sent him to accomplish or he wouldn't have been raised
from the dead. His death on Calvary was satisfactory. That is, it satisfied the justice
of God for all for whom he died. It's also proof that he is exactly
who he claimed to be. The eternal Son of God, the spotless
Lamb of God. If he's a sinner like us, then
we're all goners. He is the eternal, spotless,
holy lamb, immutable lamb. He's the victorious champion
of sinners because he is the holy son of God, and that he
rose from the dead proves it. I have no message if Christ be
not risen. My preaching is vain. Same thing
if Christ be not sovereign. Same thing, if Christ be not
successful in his death, in his sin atoning death, if his blood
be not effectual, then my preaching is vain. And you are yet in your sins. The Lord Jesus said, I must be
raised again the third day. And if he is not, that you're
still in your sins. He said, I lay down my life for
the sheep and they shall never perish. So if one for whom he
died perishes, then all of us are yet in our sins because he's
a fraud. To reject any part of the gospel
is to make the whole gospel fall apart. That's what he's saying.
It's all vain. Christ died in vain. You believed
in vain. I'm preaching in vain. I've heard people say that they
believe in the five points of Calvinism. Except, you know which one. Except for limited atonement. I just can't believe that Christ
only died for the elect. Well, then you can't believe
the gospel. Because that's what the scripture says. And maybe
you're sitting there wondering, well, am I one of the sheep?
I don't know, do you believe on the Son of God? The gospel call is not figure
out if you're one of the elect. The gospel call is come to me
and I'll give you rest. Come to the Savior, come to the
Son of God. Trust Him. Trust Him with your
soul. Trust Him as your righteousness
before God. Trust Him as your sin offering
before God. But they'll say, yeah, I believe,
you know, I've gone through them with people before. We don't
preach the five points of Calvinism here. Y'all know that. I've probably
said Calvinism about five times since I started this 20 years
ago. You know that. But those five truths that are
called the points of Calvinism are the gospel. They're just
the gospel. So we preach the gospel. But if you don't believe in limited
atonement, you say you believe in the other ones, you're lying.
You don't know it, but you are. Just like Paul said, you're not
gonna admit that you don't believe that Christ rose from the dead,
but that's what you're saying. By your idiocy, by your foolishness. If you don't believe in limited
atonement, in other words, Christ came to die for those and save
those that he saved. He's victorious, he can do what
he says he'll do. He's the son of God. If you don't
believe that, then you don't believe any of the gospel truth.
To believe unconditional election is to believe in limited atonement,
because whoever God chose in eternity must be redeemed. Or
he's not God, and only they are redeemed, or election's a joke. Why did he choose some to salvation
before the foundation of the world, as the scripture clearly
teaches? If that had nothing to do with salvation, redemption,
putting away of sin. To believe in total depravity
is to believe in unconditional election. Otherwise, how is a
dead sinner gonna be saved? How's a dead man gonna come to
Christ? He's not, unless God chose him. Draws him to the Savior. How's
an impotent sinner gonna be saved the truth the gospel stands or
falls as a whole And it all hinges upon the life Death Resurrection
in other words the person of Jesus Christ Salvation is a person
Don't ever forget that I'm still learning that I've been trying
to figure out that truth for a long, long time. Because we
just are so prone to adding and subtracting and reasoning and
salvation's a person. And God tells us that from the
start to the finish. He said to the Pharisees, you
search the scriptures because you think you have life by knowing
the scriptures. But the scriptures testify of
me and you won't come to me, that you might have life. You don't have life just knowing
the scriptures. For one thing, you don't know
the scriptures if you don't come to me because that's all they're
about. From the innocent victim slain
in the garden of Eden to cover the nakedness of God's children,
to the lamb on the throne in the book of Revelation, it's
about the lamb. And not only is this whole book
about the Lamb, and this whole world revolves because of the
Lamb, but eternity is about the Lamb. We're gonna sing forever
and ever and ever worthy is the Lamb, because salvation's a person,
the Son of God. You need Him, you don't need
to be converted to religion, You don't need to be converted
to a certain way of thinking. You need Christ. And when you
have him, when you know him, then you'll believe what he says. What's your doctrine, Chris?
Don't you have a creed of some kind? Don't y'all have some kind
of a confession of faith? Yep, it's right here. Right there. Every word of that. What right
do I have to go in here and pick out what I like and say that's
our confession? This is our confession. What
God said. Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word which proceeds from the mouth of God. And every
word of it concerns his son. And he said in this book that
he wrote this book so that you might believe on the son of God.
That's why it's here. That's why we're here. Notice that Paul says it's those
who are fallen asleep in Christ that he's talking about here. He said that those, if there
be no resurrection, then those who are fallen asleep in Christ
are perished. The reason he makes that distinction
is because it's a foregone conclusion and assumed here by Paul that
those who are dead outside of Christ are perished. They're
goners. But if what you're saying is
true, he says to them, then those who are dead in Christ are perished
too. And I couldn't end this message
on all the negatives that Paul has proposed here. Assuming that
there's no resurrection, he assumes that position to show the consequences
of that, of what they were saying. Because look at verse 19, that
makes us of all men most miserable. You think about that, is it better
to have no hope or to have a false hope? That's a tough call, isn't it?
But I tell you this, those who know the Lord Jesus
Christ live that. It's not just some decision we
made at some point in time, and now we go to church on a regular
basis. We come here to worship Him.
That's what we do. And we do that all the time. But here, He's promised to meet
with us and commune with us when we gather two or three or more
in His name to meet with us. This is a special time here.
where the gospels preach to where, able to think on things above
where he sits on the throne in power. But we live that. And if it was
a farce, then the most wonderful, beautiful, glorious thing that
there ever was is gone. It's not something you can really
think about very long because it's, It's a theoretical, it's
not true. He's very quick to say that in
verse 20. But if it were so, how heart-wrenching. You can't even measure the sense
of loss to lose everything. But verse 20, now is Christ risen
and become the first fruits of them that slept. In other words,
everybody that sleeps in him, everybody who has died believing
on the Lord Jesus Christ, he rose and he gave them life from
the dead spiritually and physically. We're risen with Christ now. And we're gonna rise again from
our graves, our bodies. He redeemed us body and soul.
And we're gonna rise from the dead. He's the first fruits.
He rose from the dead, even though there were those that rose. When
he was on the cross, there were some that came out of their graves.
Because of the power of his atoning blood. But he is saying here in verses
19 and 20, that assumption of what you say being true ends
in great misery. But that's not true. Christ is
risen from the dead. We don't preach in vain. We preach
the gospel. We preach the word of God. The one truth in this whole world Was it Agrippa or Felix that
told Paul he was crazy? He said, you're crazy. And Paul
said, no, I'm the one here that's sane. You're the one that's crazy.
To not believe God is insane. Our loved ones who have died, The ones who were among us, we
have family members that have died, but I'm talking about the
ones in this church, in this family, who have died. We look to the risen Savior, and we see hope for ourselves
and them. We see the reality. We don't mourn, we don't suffer,
we don't sorrow as others who have no hope. We have a sure
hope, the risen Son of God. I think about Rebecca, I think
about Mark, I think about Dee. They're with the Lord Jesus Christ
because He rose from the dead for their justification. They're
risen in Him and with Him because of Him. That's beautifully they
picked that was pictured beautifully when they were baptized Because
that's a symbol of how that Christ died was buried and rose and
because he did we do In every way we have life in every sense
of the word in Christ Risen to newness of life while
they lived and Risen from the dead Spiritually being absent
from their earthly body. They're present with the Lord.
They're at home With the Lord Jesus Christ and one day the
Lord will raise even those bodies And change their vile bodies
We don't want to see their bodies now we don't I personally don't
even want to see a body of someone who just died, as we do often
at funerals. I don't really want to see that. Here's what I want to see. The
Lord Jesus Christ is going to change their vile bodies and
fashion them like into his glorious body. I want to see that. I want to be there for that. His glorious resurrected body. In our faith, it's in the sovereign,
crucified, and risen Son of God who accomplished salvation for
us. Who cried, it's finished, and
it is. I thought about this yesterday
and today. Think of who it is that died
on Calvary. Think of who it is that died. And consider this, even having
been forsaken by his father, this is mysterious. Now, I'm
not pretending to explain this to you, but we see this clearly
in the scripture. He cried, my God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me? So he was forsaken of his father.
There can be only one reason for that. It's because of my
sin. It's because he bore my sin and
the father Forsook him on the cross, but even having been forsaken
By his father He cries it is finished Think about what he
said Forsaken now for our sins on
the cross think about what he said father Into the hands I
commend my spirit who He was, who He is, even though suffering the full wrath of God
for my sin. He still submitted to His Father.
He still acknowledged what was accomplished. Who can number
His generation? Who can declare all the triumph
of His cross? Millions dead now live again
myriads following his train Victorious Lord, I love that song victorious
Lord And coming King Mysterious wonderful Almighty he was still
God he was God Martin Luther said God forsaking God. I can't
understand that But by God's grace, I believe it. I believe
it. Sinless, clearly sinless. Having been forsaken for the
sins that were laid on him, he said, it's finished. Into thy
hands I commend my spirit. Clearly the same holy son of
God that he always has been and always will be. even while bearing
my sin. Sinless though bearing the sins
of many, our faith is not vain who believe on the Son of God.
We shall not die in our sins because He put away our sins
by the sacrifice of Himself. We shall not die in our sins
because He suffered the just for the unjust that He might
bring us to God. And He has, He has. God give
us grace to enter into the power of his resurrection. Remember what Paul said at Philippians
3? Oh, I've got Philippians 3, let me
read it to you. Yea, doubtless, Paul wrote, to
the church at Philippi, he said, yea, doubtless, and I count all
things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus,
my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do
count them but dung, that I may win him, Christ, a person. Everything's dung for the sake
of this. I have him now, I have him. And
I've lost everything else and don't give a hoot. Don't want
it, wouldn't have it. Because I've won Christ by his
grace. And be found in him, not having
my own righteousness, which is of the law. Righteous righteousness,
which measures me has to be earned by keeping the law I don't want
anything to do with that pretty sure you don't either Christ
is my righteousness. He said to be found in him Having
the righteousness, which is through the faithfulness of Christ the
righteousness, which is of God by faith in Christ That I may
know him It's the person, isn't it, over
and over, and the power of His resurrection, the power of that,
to deny the resurrection is to deny everything, to deny the
gospel, to deny everything good. That I may know Him and the power
of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings be made conformable
unto His death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection
of the dead. Though I had already attained
either were already perfect, but I follow after I pursue If that I may apprehend that
for which also I am apprehended of Jesus Christ Apprehended of Jesus Christ the
reason That he's worth everything to me is because he laid hold
of me and would not let me go. With this one thing I do, forgetting
those things which are behind and reaching forth under those
things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize
of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. May God teach us
something of the power of His resurrection, the power of Who
he is, you know, he told Martha. I am the resurrection Our faith is not in events Well,
my faith is in the cross Christ is the crucifixion if he's the
resurrection then he's the crucifixion and the incarnation It's him
not an event That's just him being him May He increase our faith in
Him. Let's pray.