Turn with me to the twenty-eighth
chapter of the book of Matthew. Chapter twenty-eight. I'll read the whole chapter. At the end of the Sabbath, as
it began to dawn towards the first day of the week, came Mary,
Magdalene, and the other Mary to see the sepulcher. And behold,
there was a great earthquake, for the angel of the Lord descended
from heaven and came and rolled back the stone from the door,
and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning,
and his raiment quite as snow. And for fear of him the keepers
did shake, and became as dead men. And the angel answered and said
unto the women, Fear not ye, for I know that ye seek Jesus
which was crucified. He is not here, for he is risen. As he said, Come, see the place
where the Lord lay, and go quickly and tell his disciples that he
is risen from the dead. And behold, he goeth before you
into Galilee, there shall ye see him, lo, I have told you.'
And they departed quickly from the sepulcher with fear and great
joy, and did run to bring his disciples word. And as they went
to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail! And they came and beheld him
by the feet, and worshipped Then said Jesus unto them, Be not
afraid, go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, and there
shall they see me. Now when they were going, behold,
some of the watch came into the city, and showed unto the chief
priest all the things that were done. And when they were assembled
with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large money
unto the soldiers, saying, Say ye, his disciples came by night,
and stole him away while we slept. And if this come to the governor's
ears, we will persuade him, and secure you. So they took the
money, and did as they were taught. And this saying is commonly reported
among the Jews until this day. Then the eleven disciples went
away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw him, they worshipped
him, but some doubted And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying,
All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore
and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe
all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And, lo, I am
with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen." Well,
there is a great change from the man of sorrows before the
crucifixion to the Lord of all. Great and glorious change has
taken place. Before the crucifixion, he was a man of sorrows, despised
and rejected of men, and acquainted with grief. But now he is the
Lord of all. The babe of Bethlehem's manger,
is the Lord of all. And I want to talk to you for
a few minutes here this morning about what is said in these last
three verses, verses 18, 19, and 20. In the eighteenth verse,
Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto
me in heaven and in earth." He makes this statement. This
is his claim, a claim of the Lord Jesus Christ. He claims
to have all power in heaven. All power was given unto him
by God the Father as a consequence or as a result of his death,
the result of his accomplishment. Many times I have reminded you that our Lord was sent by God
to accomplish salvation for His people, to accomplish redemption
for His people. I have told you many times that
He is the messenger of the covenant, that God had made a covenant,
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, before worlds was,
God had made a covenant, a contract. And there was perfect unity and
agreement in the covenant. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Most Highest,
the Son of God, the darling of God's bosom, agreed to fulfill
all the stipulations of that covenant. All men had sinned. But God the Father, in His infinite wisdom and His
great love, chose out of fallen humanity, chose out from Adam's
fallen race a certain number that no man can number, out of
every tribe and kindred on the face of the earth, chose out
unto himself a people for himself. And the Lord Jesus Christ agreed
to fulfill all the demands made of that covenant in reference
to the people that God gave him. He said he'd fulfill all the
requirements. He'd stand for them. And he'd
accomplish whatever God required in order that these people that
he had chosen might be the elect of God or the saved of God. Whatever God required out of
them, the Lord Jesus said, I'll stand for them. I'll fulfill
all your requirements on their behalf. I'll be their Savior. I'll be their substitute." So he's the messenger of the
covenant. He came as their substitute and
representative, their Savior, and completely fulfilled all
the requirements. accomplished all that was demanded
of God of them. He did it in their place as a
man. So now, after the crucifixion, after
the resurrection, He tells His disciples, He tells them that
all power is given unto me. All power has been given by God
the Father unto me, all power, as the result of consequences
of my death. Remember, he says there that
God hath highly exalted him. giving Him a name above every
name in heaven and earth, exalted the Son of God as the consequence
of His accomplishment, what He accomplished on behalf of the
people that the Father hath chosen unto Himself. Now, what does
that mean, all power? What does that mean, really?
All power hath been given unto me in heaven." Well, I don't
think that the human mind is capable of conceiving the fullness
of the meaning of that expression. We must be akin to the prophets
who said aforetime such knowledge is too wonderful for me. Such
knowledge is too high for me. I think what this means when
it says all power, it means the power of self-existence. All power is given unto me. The power of self-existence,
the power of creation, the power of sustaining that which is made,
the power of creating, the power of destroying, the power of opening,
and the power of shutting, the power of overthrowing, and the
power of killing, and the power of making alive. He said all
power is given unto me, all power to pardon, all power to forgive,
all power to condemn, all power to give, and all power to withhold,
and all power to decree, and all power to fulfill. All this, whatever it means,
Whatever it means, and I certainly do not know all that it means,
but what I've said thus far is in the boundary of the meaning
of all power. Whatever it means, all power
in heaven is given to Him. The hands that were nailed to
the tree now hold the power, all power, that's in heaven,
been turned over to the Lord Jesus Christ. The power to decree,
the power to fulfill, the power to pardon, the power to condemn. I cannot describe it. It cannot
be described in its fullness by the sons of fallen Adam. We might as well try to describe
infinity as to try to tell out all that is in the expression. All power, whatever it is, though
I insist, it's in His hands, the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ. All power, He said, in heaven. That means the power of Jehovah
God, the Father. All power in heaven. He has the
power of God Himself. He is God. The Lord Jesus Christ
is God. He's equal with God. He's not
God the Father. There's God the Father, and there's
God the Son, and there's God the Holy Spirit. And we do not
call Him Father. We call the God of heaven and
earth our Father. When you pray, say, Our Father,
which art in heaven. The Lord Jesus Christ is not
God the Father, He's God the Son. But He's equal with God,
and now it says here that He has all power in heaven, which
means He has the power of God the Father Himself, all power. Listen, it means whatever Jehovah
God the Father can do, the Lord Jesus Christ can do. He has that
power. If it were His will, if it were
the will of the Lord Jesus Christ, He could speak another world
into existence. He has that power. All that power
has been given to Him, has been turned over to Him, has been
placed in His hands. He holds the reins of all created
forces and He impels them or restrains them according to his
good pleasure, according to his will. That's all involved in
this expression, all power is given to me. He who was once
despised and rejected of men, a man acquainted with grief,
a man of sorrow, He now has all power in heaven, and that relates
to the providential skill and might with which God rules in
the entirety of the universe. He who was despised and rejected
of men now commands the homage of heaven. That means the angels
and the seraphims and the cherubims. That means that they wait on
the wing to do His bidding as He wills, as He wills, who has
all power. They wait to do the will of Him
That is, the armies of heaven, they stand sitting on ready to
do the will of Him whom God hath raised from the dead and hath
given Him all power over everything in this universe. He has it. All power must include the power
of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit that convinces
men of sin. It's the Holy Spirit that leads
them to the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the Holy Spirit that convinces,
convicts, and brings men to the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's His business. But the
Bible teaches here that he has the power of the Holy Spirit. Since he's been given all power
in heaven, he has the power of God the Father and he has the
power of the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit goes forth
among the sons of men according to the will of the Lord Jesus
Christ and quickens Whom He wills. He has this power of the Spirit
of God to convince and to convict. He has all the power of the Trinity,
the power of the Father, the power of the Son, and the power
of the Holy Spirit. He is exalted by God above all
principalities and all power and all might and all dominion. And every name that is named
in this world or in the world to come, He has dominion and
dignity and power over all. There is no other name given
among men under heaven that has the power and the might that
this man has who wants was described as a man of sorrows, despised
and acquainted with grief. He also claims here not only
to have all power in heaven, but he claims to have all power
in earth. All power in heaven, he says,
is mine. The power of destroyed. God destroyed two cities in the
plains of Sodom and Gomorrah, destroyed every single solitary
soul in that city. He has that power. God rained
fire and brimstone down upon that city. And there was nothing
left of those companion cities except ash. Nothing left. God had that power. Our Lord Jesus Christ has that
power. All power has been given to him.
The power in Noah's days. that caused the rains, the heavens
to open up, and the earth beneath the heavens to open up, and to
bring such a enormity of water to fall from the heavens, to
come up from underneath, to flood the highest mountain, to cover
the face of the earth. to destroy everything that lived
and moved and breathed. He has that power, not only the
power of heaven, but all power in earth, our Lord Jesus Christ. You remember when Naaman came
to the king of Israel and asked that his friend might
be healed of leprosy, the king of Israel became indignant and
immediately said, Am I God who can kill and make alive? His problem was he didn't have
no power. But our Lord Jesus Christ has
power. All power is given to me in heaven
and in earth. He has power over the wind and
He has power over the waves. He came to that little boat.
walking on the water. He was lying asleep in the hinder
part of that little boat. And the wind and the waves began
to rage. And they woke him up and they
said, Master, carest not thou that we perish? And he said,
O ye of little faith. And he looked at the wind and
he spoke to the wind and the waves and everything subsided. He has that power, that power. That's Him whom we worship. He's our God. That's what motivated
us to come out here on this Sunday morning in the ice and the snow,
to brave our way to this building. that we might hear of Him and
worship Him who has all power, the power to destroy, the power
to kill, the power to make alive. We worship Him, the Lord Jesus
Christ. His power is not limited. There's nothing in heaven or
in earth that has the power to limit Him in anything. Nothing in the universe can limit
His power, can constrain Him, can thwart Him from doing as
He pleases. He has power over the minds of
men, both good and bad. Power over their minds to make
them do His will. He has power over, and that was
seen in our conversion when we were converted to God. We couldn't
believe, but He made us to believe. He caused us to believe. He made
us willing to believe when we were dead men. Oh, His power extends over the
minds of men, the wicked and the good. He called up whomsoever
He pleases into the fellowship of Himself. He has that power. he worketh in them all the good
pleasure of his will." Power, power. He has the keys of the
kingdom, and he has the keys of every human heart, and he
opens, and no man can shut. That's what power he has. Well, it's ours to tell out this
story. It's ours to tell out this gospel
of His power, what He is willing to do and what He can do. We tell the gospel and preach
the gospel, and we believe that there is no man on the face of the earth. No
man makes no difference from what tribe or kindred or tongue
he comes from. We don't believe that there's
any man beyond the saving power of this man that has all power
in heaven and earth. Oh, it's so thrills my heart
and amazes me at what this man can do. He can do anything and
everything. Nothing too hard for God, our
God. No man is beyond the realm of
mercy with this God. You remember, converted the Pharisees
as well as the publicans. Paul was a Pharisee, and Paul was not looking for
God. Paul was on his way to kill those
or to put those in jail who were the followers of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And him who has all power, overpowered
Paul, unhorsed him and struck him blind. And Paul said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said,
I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecuted. And Paul immediately
replied, What will you have me to do? And he said, Preach the
gospel. Tell of the power of this man,
Christ Jesus. No man in any conceivable position
of sin may stand beyond the reach of his power A man might be on
the very verge, on the very threshold, on the very brink of hell, but he's not beyond the saving
power of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, if all power is given unto
him in heaven and in earth, then this morning, right now, He could,
if it pleased Him, if it was His will, He could save every
person under the sound of my voice. He could do it. He has all power
to overcome. He has the power of God the Father. He has the power of God the Holy
Spirit. He could convince and convict
and persuade every person that sits here this morning to do
His will if it so pleased Him. He has that power. And it's not
just limited to this small group that we have. He could, if He
would, save every soul at this minute. at this second in Marion
County. There are 60,000 people in Marion
County, and at the will of Him, He could save every one of them. And it's not just restricted
to Marion County or to this place or to the state of West Virginia.
He could do it to every single solitary person, alive or dead,
in the United States of America. He could save them. He has that
power. He could save everybody in this
universe, every nation, every tribe and every tongue, from
the remotest corners of China to the barren flats of Russia. If he would, if he would, he
could convert and pardon and save. everybody on this planet. All power. All power. That's what he's got. He has
that as the consequence of what he accomplished on the tree.
God give him all power. I give you all power in heaven
and in earth. It's yours. It's in your hands. We're going to talk for just
a minute here on how He displays that power, how He displays it. Listen, our bodies may be rotting in the ground
when He comes again. In all probability, all of us
will be dead before He comes again. It's not to say I don't
think He's coming. Tomorrow He can come today. I
don't know when He's coming, but He's going to come. All of
us may be dead when He comes. He who has all power is going
to come to us. Where I am there, you might be
also, even if your bodies lie rotten in the grave. And we're
going to die. We may be in the grave, in the
ground, six feet under the ground. The casket may have collapsed
in on our bones and our dust. There may not be anything left
in these rotting bodies when He comes. But when He comes,
we'll understand then somewhat of His power. Because He'll take
that which is nothing, And he'll make it to rise again like Ezekiel. Ezekiel, he said, look over there
at that field of those dead bones. Look at them. They weren't even
joined together. Bone here and a bone there, a
field full of dry bones. And he told Ezekiel, he said,
speak to the bones. that they might live. We'll experience
that one day, His power, His power that'll come to these rotten
bodies. And say, Arise! For once they'll
arise, they'll come together, flesh and muscle and bone. We'll rise from that grave. We'll
know then that all power is His. as the blast of the trumpet that
dead in Christ shall rise. Those here and those in other
places that have heard His command to
believe and to trust in Him will tremble because they'll take
on a new body too. But they'll tremble, but we'll
rejoice. Oh, listen, a man may resist
Him here. A man can do that, resisting. And the majority of the world
at any given time is in out-and-out resistance and rebellion against
Him who has all power, who bids all men to come, who bids men
to come to Him and find in Him life and life eternal. But they
resist. They won't then. They oppose
Him here, but we'll be unable to oppose Him there. We'll have
to stand in judgment and be judged for their rebellion. Now, brethren,
let me say this. and I'll quit." This is His usual way of displaying
this power. He might have said to His disciples
here, these eleven, eleven of them, He came, remember He told
them, He said, Go tell my brethren, In verse 10, He said unto the
women, Go, tell My brethren that they go into Galilee, and there
shall they see Me. Now, in verse 18, Jesus came
and spake unto them, these eleven disciples, and He said, This
all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. He might
have said, instead of saying, Go ye therefore, He might have
said, Go ye therefore, take your swords from their sheath. And these Jews that crucified
me, kill every one of them. He might have said, all of my
enemies that are alive right now, take your swords and kill them. Spill their blood, do them in. Oh, my soul. He didn't say that. He didn't, say, take vengeance
on them, but you know what he said? He said, Go ye first unto
Jerusalem and preach the gospel to those Jews that crucified
me. Go, he said. This is the way
he displays his power, by teaching and preaching. Go ye therefore
and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe
all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And lo, I am with
you always, even unto the end of the world." Oh, listen, he
said, teaching and preaching. That's the way that we'll display
this power. They say today the means that
we use to bring about men into the kingdom of God is we've got
to display our talents. We've got to bring in men and women who are talented
in the art of music to sing the hymns and the songs. We've got
to dress our people in vivid colors. in various robes and
gowns and things of that nature, and create an atmosphere, a spiritual
and religious atmosphere, and do our best to persuade people
to come. Oh, no! I've seen where in the paper
where a church had advertised in the Fairmont paper, in the
Morgantown paper, didn't say anything about the gospel at
all, but said, we're having a concert December the 22nd. So-and-so
is going to be here in concert. We want everyone to come. that will have such a display
of talent here that you'll be bound to be changed or converted. That's not the way it is. He
says the usual way to display His power is the preaching of
the gospel to every creature. That's how we display the power
of God, by preaching the gospel, not by having contests, not by
having human talent displayed in their gifts of magic or drawing
pictures or final graphs or recitation. Like the guy that told me in
the funeral home one day, he said, He said, you and I need
to get together. And I said, well, how's that?
He said, well, he said, we need to rent the armory over there.
Rent the armory. Holds four or five thousand people. We need to rent that armory.
He's talking in big things. He was way beyond me. Talking about renting the armory
and wanting me to go in with him as a collaborator. in some
sort of a scheme to cause men to turn to Christ. And he said,
you know what? He said, I can recite. I don't know how many books of
the Bible. Maybe it was the whole New Testament. I have learned
the New Testament. I can recite them verbatim without
missing a word. Every verse, every word in the
New Testament. And he said, you and I rent that
armory. And he said, I'll display my knowledge and my talent. That's
not the way. He may have good intentions,
I don't know, but that ain't the way. The way to display the
power of God is to preach the gospel. Go, he said, ye therefore,
into all nations. That's the reason why. Walter Gruber and his son Cody
and their families is down in Mexico. They're not down there
putting on a show. They're preaching the gospel
of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's the reason why Bill Clark
is over in Africa two or three times every year, over in Portugal,
in France, That's the reason why we support Bill and Cody
and his daddy and their families and the Russian interpreter and
translator. That's the reason why we send
money to them, because this is the way of displaying the power
of God Almighty in Christ Jesus, the preaching of the gospel.
Tell men that He has the power to make dead men live. Listen, we preach the gospel. We preach to dead sinners, dead in trespasses and in sins. I've been preaching these many
years, and every Sunday, And every time I preach, I preach
to dead sinners, dead sinners that can't respond, and I can't
make them respond. I can't make a man believe. I
can't persuade him to believe. I can't convince him under no
circumstance to believe. If I had the abilities and the
talent of the greatest man that ever walked the face of the earth,
apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. I couldn't persuade one dead
sinner to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, but I'm commanded
to go. He commands me to go, and He
commands you to go, and display His power in the preaching of
the gospel, although they're all dead in trespasses and in
sin, and they can't hear, and they won't hear. and you can't
make them to hear. But yet He commands us to go.
He has that power. The power is in Him to make men
believe. I believed this morning because
You made me to believe. He didn't do it against my will.
He made me willing. Once He worked the work in me,
I wanted to believe. in the worst way. Power is in
Him. No power in the sinner to believe,
and no power in the preacher to make him believe. No power
to lead a man to repent, but it's in Him in whom is all power. If He told me this morning, if
He told Not if you told me or someone else told me, but if
He told me to go up there on the hill above Barrickville where
the graveyard is, where some of my own flesh and blood is
buried. If He told me to go up there
to the graveyard and to bid the dead to rise again, If He told
me that, I would do that with as much pleasure as I now preach
the gospel to this congregation. I regard all men to be dead in
sin, and yet I tell them to live simply because He commanded me
to do it. Had to cry, ye dead bones live. See what I'm talking about? All
powers in him, in heaven and in earth. All power. Power to
overcome, power to overwhelm, power to slay, power to make
alive. Power to withstand and withhold
that which is already made. Power to sustain, power, power,
power to make the worst sinner outside of hell willing to believe
and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Usually his way to display it
is to preach the gospel. Preach the gospel. It's all that. Let me read one other verse and
I'll quit. over here in the first chapter
of the book of Romans. Listen to what it says. Paul
here said, So, first he said, I'm a debtor. I'm a debtor. A
debtor to God. I owe everything to Him. I'm a debtor both to the Greeks
and to the barbarians, both the wise and the unwise. I'm a debtor. as much as in me is. I'm ready to preach the gospel
to you that are at Rome also, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel,
of the gospel. I'm not ashamed of the gospel.
Now listen, why, Paul? Why, Paul? For it, the gospel
is the it. For it is the power It's the
power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes, to the
Jew first and also to the Gentile. I call upon you this morning
to believe the gospel and trust Him.