Alright everybody, let's turn
in our Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. Our subject is the end and the
beginning. This is the last service before
the year's end. This is the time when we look
back over the year and we thank God for the things that He blessed
us with. And we thank Him for the blessings
that we deem to be good. And we thank Him for the blessings
that caused us great sorrow. And it's because we know that
God is working all things together for the good of His people. according
to His eternal purpose. So the good and what we deem
not to be good, He's working all that together for our good. And so as the scripture says,
in everything give thanks. For this is the will of God in
Christ Jesus concerning you. It's the will of God that we
thank Him, and whatever He has brought to pass in our life is
the will of God concerning us. It's what He's brought to us,
so we thank Him. And at the same time, we look
ahead. We start looking to the New Year. Some make goals for
the New Year. I don't tend to make New Year's
resolutions, but that word Resolute or resolved is what Paul said
when he said, I determined, I resolved not to know anything among you
save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That's my continuous resolution
is to know Christ and know more of Christ and to preach only
Christ and Him crucified. That's my resolve. When we come
to this time of the year, and it's the year's end, I always,
it never fails, I start thinking about the end. The end after
the end. There's an end coming, and no
man knows the time when it's coming. It could be a thousand
years from today, it could be today. We don't know. But we do know this, there is
an end coming. There is an end coming. Look
here in verse 19. I'll give you a little context. I'll read a few verses before
I get to my text. Verse 19, he says, 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. In other words, He's the first
to arise so that those that have now died are going to arise and
follow Him. Verse 21, For since by man came
death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all
die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. And this is
true of all men. All men, those who believe Christ
and those who don't. All shall be made alive. We're going to all continue either
with the Lord or cast out from the Lord's presence. But we're
going to all be raised and we're going to all live. Now listen,
he says, but every man in his own order. Christ the firstfruits,
afterward they that are Christ's at his coming. Now here's where
our text begins. Then cometh the end. Then cometh
the end. When he shall have delivered
up the kingdom to God, even the Father. When he shall have put
down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign
till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy
that shall be destroyed is death. For he hath put all things under
his feet. But when he saith all things
are put under him, it is manifest that he is accepted, which did
put all things under him. And when all things shall be
subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject
unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all
in all. What he's saying here is, is
when Christ has finished everything, when He's accomplished everything
the Father sent Him to accomplish, and He's delivered the kingdom
up to God, then cometh the end. When all the saints are called,
when Christ has returned, when He's resurrected all and that's
complete, when judgment is over, when He's delivered up the kingdom
to the Father, then cometh the end. Now this is the end that
Acts 3.21 calls the times of the restitution of all things
which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since
the world began. God's been talking about this
end from the beginning. Ephesians 1.10 calls it the dispensation
of the fullness of times. It's when God shall gather together
in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and
which are on earth, even in Him. Now this end is when our Lord
Jesus Christ has put all His enemies under His feet and He's
delivered up every single chosen, redeemed, regenerated child of
God to the Father. This is the end. We'll see here,
first of all, the Lord Jesus must reign until the end. It
says, verse 25, He must reign till He has put all enemies under
His feet. Then we'll see that this end
will come when Christ has delivered up the kingdom to the Father.
He says, then cometh the end, verse 24, then cometh the end
when He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the
Father. The kingdom is His people, made
up of His people. And then we'll see lastly that
every believer then will behold the end for which God made all
things. We're going to behold the very
end thing that God made everything, He made everything for this purpose. And here it is, verse 28, When
all things shall be subdued unto Christ, then shall the Son also
himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that
God may be all in all. There's the reason. Now first
of all, the Lord Jesus must reign. He must reign until the end comes. He says there, that He must reign
till He's put all enemies under His feet. And the last enemy
that shall be destroyed is death. Christ Jesus, the God-man, our
mediator, must reign. He must reign. First of all,
He must reign because He's God. The Son of God, Christ the Lord,
is God and God must reign. That's the very definition of
God. He reigns. And Christ Jesus, the God-man,
seated at God's right hand right now, must reign. What does that mean? Here's what
it means. It's speaking of Christ when
it says, Our God is in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever He hath
pleased. That's Christ Jesus, God our
Savior. Psalm 135 verse 6 says, Whatsoever
the Lord pleased, that did He in heaven. in the earth, in the
seas, and in all deep places. That means He reigns everywhere,
over all, at all times because He's God. He's God. He must reign
because His dominion is the reward of His obedience. Our Lord Jesus
Christ came with a mission when He came here. He came to fulfill
the will of God His Father. And that's what He did. He came
and accomplished everything He promised the Father in eternity.
He fulfilled all the prophets. He fulfilled all the law. On
behalf of His people, He lived a perfect life and died a perfect
death, justifying all His people from our sins, redeeming us from
the curse of the law, putting away our sins forever so that
God will never again bring them up. That's what he accomplished. Our Lord Jesus accomplished declaring
the righteousness of God. He accomplished declaring God
just, fulfilling His law, honoring His law. He accomplished declaring
that God Himself is the justifier. We don't get glory for justifying
ourselves. God is the justifier. He's just
and He is the justifier. And so because he accomplished
the will of the Father, as the Father promised, God also highly
exalted him. And he's given him all power
and all dominion over all as the God-man. And therefore, he
must reign. He must reign. In Psalm 2-8,
God said, ask of me. This is when he raised Christ.
to his right hand. He said, Ask of me, I shall give
thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the
earth for thy possession. Romans 14.9 says this is why. For to this end, this is the
end purpose that Christ both died and rose and revived is
that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. So
he must reign. He must reign. Go to Ephesians
1. And we'll see this in what God did when He raised Him. And
what Paul's declaring here is the same power it took to raise
Christ from the dead is the power it takes to raise you and me
from death to spiritual life. He says, Ephesians 1.20, this
is the the working of His mighty power, the exceeding greatness
of His power to us were to believe, which He brought in Christ when
He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right
hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and
power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named,
not only in this world, but also in that which is to come, and
hath put all things under His feet and gave Him to be the head
over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness
of Him that filleth all in all. He says there, He put all things
under His feet. That's what our text said. He
must reign because God put all things under His feet. So He's
sovereign, absolutely sovereign to do exactly what pleases the
Father. exactly what pleases Him. He
has no problem bringing the gospel to His people causing it to cross
the path of His lost sheep. He has no problem doing that.
He has no problem quickening His lost sheep to life. He has
no problem drawing us to Him and bringing us irresistibly
to bow to Him and believe on Him. He's sovereign. This is
the God-man mediator and He must reign. And this is why He must
reign because The salvation of all God's elect and the glory
of God is all dependent upon Him reigning. They're connected. The glory of God, God receiving
all glory, and the salvation of all God's elect, they're vitally
connected. God will not have all the glory
unless all His people are saved. And all of this has been entrusted
to the Son. And so He must reign. John 17
2, Christ prayed this prayer to the Father. He said, Thou,
as Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, speaking of Himself,
that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given
Him. And this is life eternal, that
they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ to
Whom Thou hast sent. And He said, I have glorified
Thee on the earth. I have finished the work which
thou gavest me to do. This is what he will be able
to say. He had finished it then when he prayed that prayer. But
this is what he will say when the end comes. I have glorified
you. I have given eternal life to
as many as thou hast given me. I've brought them to know you,
Father. I've brought them to know me in whom is life eternal. See, His glory, God's glory and
the salvation of His people are connected. And we're the fullness
of Christ. So for His body to be complete,
for God the Father to be glorified, Christ must reign saving all
His people from our sins. So right now, everything that's
happening in this world is under the power, under the dominion
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Everything. He's put all things
under His feet. Verse 24 says, He shall put down
all rule and all authority and all power. Verse 25 says, For
He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet. The last one being death. That's
when the end will come. It'll only come when Christ has
graciously, effectually conquered everyone that He redeemed. We're
enemies in our minds. by wicked works, we're His enemies.
We consider Him our enemy and we're part of those enemies that
He's going to conquer. Every one of His elect people,
He must conquer them and He will. And then all those who are rebellious
and who will not walk in the light God's given them, it will
be their own fault and He will conquer all those enemies. And
the last enemy that will be conquered is death. That means He conquers
our flesh. That's our number one enemy.
He conquers our flesh. He conquers Satan. He conquers
this world. He conquers all sinners in this
world. He conquers our sin. And the
last enemy that He will have conquered will be death. Death. Judicial death. He conquered
it by making us the righteousness of God so there's no more guilt.
Judicially, legally, we can't die. He conquered our spiritual
death when He regenerated us so that there's a new man in
us that is eternally alive and shall never die. And He's going
to raise our mortal body the same way. And He's going to conquer
physical death when He resurrects us. So He conquered the last
enemy will be death. So when we come to the end of
a year like this, it's good to think about the fact that one
day soon, just as sure as this year came to its end, one day
soon Christ is coming and this end we're talking about right
here is going to come. It's going to come just as sure
as this year came to its end. That year's coming. That end's
coming. When the end comes, the Lord Jesus Christ shall deliver
up the kingdom to God His Father. The end will not come until He
has delivered the kingdom to His Father. He says there in
verse 24, Then cometh the end when He shall have delivered
up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when He shall have put
down all rule and all authority and power. Verse 28 says, And
when all things shall be subdued unto Him, and all things should
be subdued unto Him. When it says there, it says,
then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him that put
all things under Him. Let me tell you what that does
not mean. It does not mean that Christ is not God. It does not
mean that. John 1 says, in the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
That's the same Word that was made flesh. That's Christ. He's
God. It doesn't mean He's not God.
It doesn't mean, it does not mean, that the Son of God is
in any way inferior to the Father. They're equal. There are three
that bear record in heaven. The Father, the Word, and the
Holy Ghost, and these three are one. That's the Father, that's
the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and the Holy Ghost. It's
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. He's
in no way inferior to the Father. And nor does it mean that Christ
will ever cease to be the prophet, priest, and king over His church
and His kingdom. He'll never cease being the prophet,
priest, and king over His church and His kingdom. Listen to this.
In Hebrews 1.8, God said to His Son, He said unto the Son, Thy
throne, there's His kingdom. There's His kingship. Thy throne,
O God. He's speaking to the Son. Thy
throne, O God, is forever and ever. He'll never stop being
king. A scepter of righteousness is
the scepter of Thy kingdom. Righteousness means He is the
prophet and He is the priest of His people. He'll never stop
being the prophet, priest, and king of His people. So it doesn't
mean that. Verse 24 explains what it means. It says, Christ shall deliver
up the kingdom to God, to the Father. Even as He promised the
Father, He would. And that will be the final work
of our Lord Jesus Christ. That will be the final work of
Jehovah's servant. That'll be the final work of
Christ as a servant to the Father. That'll be the final work of
Christ as a surety and mediator of the covenant. That'll be the
final work. The shepherd gonna present his
sheep. That'll be the final work. The
Savior will present his church. The Son will present all his
brethren. the king will present his whole
kingdom to God the Father. That will be the last thing he
does in his covenant work that he promised the Father he would
do. Scripture says he loved the church and he gave himself for
it that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of
water by the word that he might present it to Himself. That's what you see there. When
you see the Son of God, Christ, presenting the church to God
His Father, that's Him presenting the church to Himself. They're
one. They're one. So they're not divided. That's not what it's saying.
Christ will say to the Father, He's going to say, Behold, I
and the children whom Thou hast given Me, He's going to say,
of all that you've given me, I've lost none of them. I didn't
lose one of them. Here they all are. Every one
of them. I redeemed them. I sent the Spirit, regenerated
them. I resurrected them. I've glorified them. And I've
kept them all. Here they are right now. Unblameable,
unreprovable, holy, righteous in your sight, Father. Here's
every one of them you entrusted with me. And then he's going
to say this, Father I will that they also whom thou has given
me be with me where I am that they might behold my glory which
thou has given me for you love me from the foundation of the
world. And God's going to say to his
son, and he's going to say to every single believer standing
there with his son, He's going to say, well done, my good and
faithful servant. Well done. Inherit the kingdom
prepared for you from the foundation of the world. That's what he's
talking about. And here's the last thing. Then
we're going to see, you and I who believe, we're going to see the
purpose for which God made this world. You ever wonder about
the secret of life? What's the secret of life? Here
it is. This is why God made everything. This is why God has upheld everything. This is why God is going to bring
everything to this end right here. This is why. Verse 28 at
the end says, that God may be all in all. In the end, The triune God, God
the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are going
to be seen. He's a spirit. God can't be seen. He's a spirit. But we're going
to see Him in that day. And we're going to see Him with
flesh and blood, glorified flesh and bone like we have. We're
going to see Him in the person of Christ Jesus, the same one
that walked this earth. In Him dwells all the fullness
of the Godhead in a body. And we're going to see the triune
God in Christ. When He says there that the Son
will be subject to Him, it simply means His work of being the mediator
will be finished. He won't be that anymore. He
won't be the mediator anymore. There'll be no need for that.
He won't be the surety anymore. There won't be a need for that.
Just like you and I won't have faith anymore. We won't need
it. We won't have hope anymore. We won't need it. We'll see Him
as He is. And all we'll see, we'll see
the triune God in the face of Christ Jesus the Lord. It means
that God will be all in all. He'll be all in all. Look at Ephesians 2, 7. I want
you to see this. Ephesians 2, 7. Here's why He saved us right
here. Verse 7, that in the ages to
come, He might show the exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness
toward us through Christ Jesus. Now you think about this, brethren.
When we come to this end and we behold our triune God in the
face of Christ Jesus, face to face, We're going to know Him
just like He's known us. We're going to know Him. And
He's bestowed so many riches on us by His grace. It's going
to be ages and ages and ages and ages without end learning
what rich grace He's bestowed upon us. That's a lot of grace. You mean in eternity, in all
the ages of eternity, He's still going to be showing us the exceeding
riches of His grace throughout all eternity. We're going to
be learning what He did for us. I don't know, you know, I don't
know what all that's going to include, but I sort of feel like
I sort of feel like we're going to see things about ourselves
and about our life where we mourned and we were sorrowful and we
were down and something just broke our hearts so badly. And
we're going to see what rich grace it was that God performed
for us by bringing that into our life and causing us to go
through that. And we're going to think, why did I ever mourn? Why did I ever, if I'd have seen
what He was doing, if I could have just believed truly that
all things, He's working all things together for my good,
if I could have just believed that, I'd have never shed a tear. Everything at every moment in
our life, we're going to see it perfectly and see all the
grace He's bestowing upon us. You're going to look back on
it and say, There was nothing bad that ever happened to me.
Every single thing He ever did for me was just riches upon riches
upon riches of grace. And most of all, we're going
to behold what He did for us in Christ. And see Christ and
know what He really... There won't be any arguing then.
There won't be any debate then. We'll know completely what Christ
accomplished, what He did at Calvary, how He did it, what
He accomplished. We'll know everything about it
perfectly. I guarantee you. There'll be
some there that were wrong. There'll be some there that were
right. And we'll just all say, Amen. Praise the Lord. I'm glad
He did it the way He did it. But we're going to all bow. We're
going to all bow. And we're going to rejoice forever
and forever and forever. Then our triune God in Christ
shall be all in all. He'll be all our food and clothing
and shelter. He'll be all our joy, all our
peace, all our life, all our glory. He'll be our light. We won't have a need of the sun.
He'll be all our light. He'll be all things in all His
people. He'll be everything to us. Then
God's predestinating purpose shall be accomplished. We shall
praise His glory. We'll praise God and His glory
who first trusted in Christ. That's what we're going to praise
Him most of all for, that He trusted this whole work into
the hand of His Son. Now sinner, you're sitting here
without Christ. Would you enjoy this with us?
Would you, do you want to come to this end and behold the triune
God in Christ, and be with Him for all eternity, and be able
to worship Him in spirit and in truth, perfectly, without
sin, forever. If you're sitting here without
Him, that doesn't appeal to you. If you hadn't been born of Him,
that doesn't appeal to you at all. You don't want to go to
hell. Of course, you would rather go to a place called heaven,
but to be with Him. That's what believers are looking
at. This is what our heaven is, to be with Christ. to know Christ,
to be with Him and see Him and know Him. Well let me tell you
this, this is the time right now to prepare to meet God. If you knew that December 31st
was going to be the end, we're talking about right here, Would
you just hear this message and say, well, I got time. I got
what, you know, a day and a half, a couple of days to go. No, I
believe you would be listening with just earnest intent, looking
up every scripture, wanting to know, and then I believe you'd
go home and you'd search what you heard. You'd want to find
out. I want to know who this one is.
If there's no coming of God except through Christ Jesus the Lord,
then I need to know Him. And you'd have some earnestness
about you now. You'd be diligently looking for
Him. Don't wait until it's too late
to look for Him. Now's the time to give that sort
of diligence right now. We don't know the time. We don't
know the time. Go to Psalm 90. I want to read
just two scriptures and I'm going to close. Psalm 90. I encourage you to go home and
read this whole Psalm. But I want you to just read something
here. Read verse 4. A thousand years in thy sight
are but as yesterday when it's passed, and as a watch in the
night. Thou carriest them away as with
a flood. They are as asleep. In the morning
they are like grass which grows up. He's talking about sinners
like us. In the morning it flourishes.
Grass flourishes and grows up. In the evening it's cut down
and withereth. That's you and me. For we are
consumed by thy anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled. Thou
hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the
light of thy countenance. For all our days are passed away
in thy wrath. We spend our years as a tale
that's told. The days of our years are threescore
years and ten, seventy years. And if by reason of strength
they be fourscore years, yet is there strength, labor, and
sorrow, for it's soon cut off and we fly away. He's saying
our life is short. It's very short. Who knoweth
the power of thine anger? Even according to thy fear, so
is thy wrath. So teach us to number our days,
that we may apply our hearts to wisdom. Oh Lord, This is what
I want. I want Him to teach me to number
my days. And I might apply my heart to
true wisdom. Don't you? Some of you, every
year you say, I'm going to read the Bible. I'm going to start
this first day of the year and I'm going to read the Bible all
the way through. And you stop about a quarter of the way or
maybe you get halfway through and you stop. This year start
out where you stopped last year. But all that He would teach us
to seek His Word and read His Word diligently, seeking Him
in it, because there's wisdom. Whatever it is that causes us
to gradually stop doing it and we give our attention to these
other things, that's not wisdom. This is wisdom. This is wisdom. Lord, teach me to number my days
and apply my hearts to wisdom. Verse 13, Return, O Lord, how
long? Can you say that? Can you earnestly
desire for the Lord to return? Some sitting here, when I said
it could be today, you thought, I hope it's not. Some sitting
here really and truly thought, I hope it is. Let it repent thee concerning
thy servants. Oh, satisfy us early with thy
mercy. Call us and save us by your mercy
early in our life, when we're young, that we may rejoice and
be glad all our days. Make us glad according to the
days wherein thou hast afflicted us and the years wherein we've
seen evil. Let thy work appear unto thy
servants. That's what we need. We need
to see His work. and let your glory appear unto your children. And let the beauty of the Lord
our God be upon us and establish thou the work of our hands upon
us. Yea, the work of our hands establish thou it. For you who
believe, listen to this. This I say, brethren, the time
is short. It remaineth that they that have
wives be as though they had none, and they that weep as though
they wept not, and they that rejoice as though they rejoiced
not, and they that buy as though they possessed not, and they
that use this world as not abusing it, for the fashion of this world
passes away. And surely as this year ended,
this world's going in, and everything in it, because it's temporary.
This is not it. This is not the end. This is
just passing away. It's going to all end soon. Go
to Revelation 21. I said the subject of this sermon
is the end and the beginning. Usually you have the beginning
and the end. Not with God, it works the opposite way. We come
to the end and then the beginning. And this beginning never ends. And here it is, right here. Tuesday
will be the new year. And we'll see things continue
pretty much like they did before that day came. But here is where
we're going to see everything made new right here. Revelation
21. I saw a new heaven and a new
earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away,
and there was no more sea, no more division, And I, John, saw
the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven,
prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great
voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with
men, and He will dwell with them. And they shall be His people,
and God Himself shall be with them and be their God. And God
shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be
no more death, Neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there
be any more pain, for the former things are passed away. We like
to say, well, our loved one passed away. No, they didn't pass away. All this stuff passed away from
them. They went to the beginning. They didn't pass away. We passed
away. And he that sat upon the throne
said, Behold, I make all things new. Now there's newness. And he said unto me, Write, for
these words are true and faithful. And he said unto me, It is done.
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto
him that is a thirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit
all things, and I will be his God. and he shall be my son. But listen now, for those to
whom this does not matter, and you go on one year after the
other until you die, here's what it said. But the fearful and
unbelieving and the abominable and murderers and whoremongers
and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars shall have their part
in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is
the second death. And that never ends. I pray God
make us apply our hearts to wisdom. Amen. Let's stand together, brethren. Father, we thank you for this
word. We ask you to apply it to our hearts now. Apply it how
you need it to be applied, how only you can apply it. Forgive
us, Lord, our sins. In Christ's name we ask these
things. Amen.