1 Corinthians chapter 15. I want
to read verse 12 to start. It says, Now if Christ be preached
that He rose from the dead, how say some among you that there
is no resurrection of the dead? Now the resurrection of the dead
is vital doctrine. It's at the very root of every
believer's hope. It is the very essence of our
hope and our comfort. But you take away the resurrection
of the dead and there are weighty consequences. And that's my subject
this morning, weighty consequences. False preachers had come into
the church at Corinth and they had begun to preach that the
doctrine which taught the resurrection of the dead, they taught that
this was false, this was a lie. And some of the believers at
Corinth had begun to question whether it was true or not that
men really will be raised from the dead, that there is such
thing as the resurrection. Paul says, now if Christ be preached
that He rose from the dead, how say some among you that there
is no resurrection of the dead? Now Christ arising from the grave
is the sure pledge that all who believe on Him have been raised
and shall be raised from the dead by virtue of our union with
Christ. Christ arising from the grave
is the sheer pledge to everyone that believes on him that we
have and shall be raised from the dead by virtue of our union
with Christ. This is a true doctrine. This
is so. This is true. Now, first of all,
Paul reminds us and he reminds them that this is exactly what
all the Old Testament Scriptures taught and this is what all the
early apostles believed and preached. This is what all early believers
believed and bore witness to. He says back up there in verse
3, I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received,
how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according
to the Scriptures. All the apostles taught, they
preached, that Christ came into the world appointed by God. That's
what the Old Testament Scripture said. That He came for a particular
people. That's what the Old Testament
Scripture said. To lay down His life for a particular people
chosen of God, given to Him from a mass of sinners who deserve
nothing from God. And yet God chose to be merciful
and save a people. and He chose to do it by His
Son, to give His Son all the glory and all the honor and all
the preeminence, bringing all glory and honor and preeminence
to His own name that way. That's what this thing is about,
God's glory. It's not about you and me as
much as it is about God's glory. That's what salvation is about.
And all the Old Testament Scriptures declare that Christ would accomplish
that atonement, effectually, It all declared He would make
His people justified by what He did and that He would make
them righteous in Him. And it declared, all the Old
Testament Scriptures declared that Christ would arise from
the dead. That's God's bearing witness
that Christ finished the work, accomplished the work by raising
His Son from the dead, Christ raising Himself, Him being God
in human flesh, That's declaring to you and me, it's done, it's
finished. God is satisfied in Christ. God is satisfied in Him. That's what all the Old Testament
taught. And that's what men of the Old
Testament believed. Job is the oldest book in the Bible. And
Job declared in Job 29-23, he said, Oh, that my words were
now written. Oh, that they were printed in
a book, that they were graven with an iron pen and led in the
rock forever. For I know that my Redeemer liveth,
and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And
though after my skin worms destroy this body, after my body has
long since been destroyed in the grave, he said, yet in my
flesh, in my flesh shall I see God, whom I shall see for myself,
and mine eyes shall behold and not another. I'm going to see
Him with my own eyes, he said. Though my reins be consumed within
me. Though I'm totally consumed,
long since been, I'm going to be raised and I'm going to see
Christ. That's what Job said. That's what the Old Testament
Scriptures taught. Christ said, the whole story of Jonah, and
Jonah being three days and three nights in the whale's belly,
Christ the Lord, God in human flesh said Himself, that was
a picture of Christ, death, burial and resurrection. That's what
He said. He taught that. That's what the
Old Testament Scriptures were teaching. And not only do the
Scriptures bear witness of the resurrection of Christ, there
were many witnesses that saw Christ after He arose from the
dead. Look there in verse 5. And He
was seen of Cephas, that's the apostle Peter, and then of the
twelve. And after that He was seen of
above five hundred brethren at one time, of whom the greater
part remain unto this present time. Can you imagine denying
the resurrection if there were still saints living right now
who said, I saw him. And there was a bunch of them
that said, I saw him after he arose. They were denying him
when there were people still living that said, I saw him.
I saw him. You see how bad the depravity
of the human heart is? that you won't even believe though
men sit there. Oh, we'll believe there's places we've never seen
just from the word of men that's seen it. Or we'll believe some
historical fact just from, but to believe God. God who cannot
lie, to believe Him when He says, through many witnesses, we saw
Him. And yet deny Him. That's depravity.
That's the heart that's so sinful that we can't believe Him unless
God gives us faith to believe Him. And then he says, and after
that he was seen of James, and then of all the apostles, and
last of all he was seen of me also as one born out of due time.
He said, Christ let them touch him. He had a real body. We're
going to have a real body. A glorified body, but a real
body. He let them touch him. He sat down and ate with them.
We're going to be able to do everything you do now. He ate
with them without sin. They saw Him and touched Him.
And so, this is what they preached, and no matter who preached it,
this is what they preached, and this is what God gave faith to
believe. Verse 11, He says, Therefore,
whether it were I or they, so we preach, and so you believe.
This is the Gospel. The resurrection is not just
a fact. The resurrection is just not an event that happened. The
resurrection is Christ. And the resurrection declares
Christ succeeded. He purged the sins of his people. He made atonement for their sin. He reconciled his people to God
so that no charge can be laid against them anymore. They all
shall be given faith to believe and shall be saved. Not one should
be lost. If he loses one, he failed. He
won't fail. This is what the resurrection
declares us. He's alive now. Our God's alive. Our Savior's
alive and He's working now. That's the only reason we're
gathered here. That's the only reason I'm preaching here. That's
the only reason you have a heart to believe here. He gave it.
He gathered. He assembled. He put us together. There's no other way. We could
not be kept and continue in faith except by our risen victorious
Redeemer. So now he asks this question
again. If Christ be preached that he
rose from the dead, how in the world are some of you saying
that there's no resurrection of the dead? So we see Christ's
resurrection is so. It was witnessed, it's true,
it was preached. It's the vital doctrine that
we preach. This was the essential message
they preached because preaching the resurrection is to declare
Christ victorious. Christ accomplished the work
of redemption. Now secondly, Paul gives us six
weighty reasons now, or consequences rather, six weighty consequences,
if there be no resurrection. And as we look at these, I'm
just going to go through them briefly, but as we look at these,
I want you to see, this shows us what is at the very heart
and intent of all falsehood. This is what all lies and all
preachers of lies and teachers of lies, this is at the heart
of what they would like to accomplish right here. Alright, first of
all, verse 13. If there be no resurrection of
the dead, then is Christ not risen. Now that's whatever doctrine
is being denied out of this book, that this book declares. Whatever
it is, the motive of of all evil, the motive of Satan, the motive
of his teachers and his preachers, their motive is to deny Christ
and His victory, to deny Christ and His work, to deny Christ
and the accomplished salvation that He accomplished. If there
be no resurrection of the dead, if He can get folks to believe
that, then you have to do away with Christ's work altogether,
say Christ was a failure. You see what's at the heart of
unbelief and rebellion and lies? But Christ said He would rise.
He said, destroy this temple and I'll build it again in three
days. They thought He was talking about the earthly temple. He
was talking about Himself. So His Word, He cannot lie. He's God in human flesh. And
His Word is true. And His work is true. He accomplished
it. Now look at number 2, verse 14.
And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your
faith also vain. All true preaching, all preaching
in the name of Christ that's true, that's sin of God. If Christ
is not risen, then all of it's false. It's all vain. It's all
for nothing. And not only that, the whole
body of truth that we believe, the faith, Christianity is all
vain if Christ be not risen. See, that's the intent. That's
the intent of whether men know it or not, That's the intent
of preaching lies. It is to make preaching of Christ
vanity and the whole body of truth to be vain. Now the world
thinks that. The unbelieving world thinks
there is no resurrection of the dead. That's outlandish. We're
just like dogs. We're just like beasts. We just
die and that's it. You better hope that's how it
is. If you've perished from this world, believe in that. You better
hope that's how it is. If you parish believe in that,
and I parish believe in the truth, and the truth turns out to be
the truth, who's going to be worse off, me or you? Sinner, don't listen and follow
this unbelieving world. This preaching is not vain. And
this body of truth is not vain. It's true. And then number 3,
verse 15. Yea, and we're found false witnesses
of God. Because we've 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. All those sanctified of God,
chosen, redeemed, called out, made holy, sent forth with the
gospel, are preachers of Christ. That's all we preach. We don't
preach us. We don't preach our works. We
don't preach morality. We don't preach what the rest
of the so-called Christian world's preaching. God's true preachers
are preaching Christ and His wonderful works. Our triune God
in Christ saving His people. But if Christ did not rise, we're
lying. We're just liars. We're just
lying on God. That's all. In the very first
message was preached after Christ arose. You know what was preached?
Peter stood up and he quoted David from Psalms where David
said, Thou will not suffer thy holy one to see corruption. You're
going to raise me. And Peter said, I'm telling you
now, David was a prophet. God made him a prophet and he
knew that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit
of his loins, that is from his family tree, from his genealogy,
from his own loins, according to the flesh, he would raise
up Christ to sit on David's throne. Christ is King, our King David. And he said, and he's seen this
before, spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was
not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption, and
this Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we're all witnesses.
That was the first message preached after Christ arose at Pentecost
by the Apostle Peter. All the apostles preached Christ.
They all preached the resurrection. But we're all liars against God
if Christ didn't rise. We've been lying now for three,
almost for 2016 years we've been lying. That's what everybody who does
not believe, all falsehood, all Satan and his seed, that's what
they'd love for men to believe. They'd love for you to believe
that. That all true preaching is lying. But you know the truth
of the matter is those who Christ sends to preach this message
are the only ones who are preaching the truth. You take every other
person that ever lived that claimed to be a prophet or a messiah
in this world, Mohammed, Buddha, all the different ones, you can
go to their grave and their body will be in their tomb. Christ
is the only one whose body cannot be found. He arose from the grave. He arose. Number four, verse
17, if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain and you're
yet in your sins. Christ came to save His people
from our sins. His name shall be Jesus for He
shall save His people from our sins. That's what He came for.
And Christ finished that work that God gave Him to do. He said,
It is finished. The work that thou gavest Me
to do, I finished it, He said. I finished it. To give eternal
life to as many as thou hast given Me, Christ said, I finished
that work. I finished it. Christ declared
God just. You see, here's the problem.
You're a sinner. Nothing you can do can change
it. Nothing you can do can change it. You are sin. It's not just
what you do, it's what you are. Everything about you and me has
got to be destroyed. We're sin. That's it. That's
all you can produce. Every thought that's ever come
out of your mind is only evil continually. That's what Genesis
said, the Scripture said. The thoughts and intents of man's
heart are only evil continually. But see, God's going to be judged.
If He's going to save you, God's going to do it upholding His
law. In other words, justice is going
to have to be poured out on you if God saves you. You cannot. He's a just God. He won't be
bribed. He won't push justice aside.
You've got to die. You've got to die under the penalty
of the law because you broke it. That's in order for God to
be just. You've got to die. Christ came
forth. to take the place of the people
God gave to him so that he bore that justice in the room instead
of those God gave him. So that now God has poured out
on Christ that sentence of death and God is now just. His law
has been honored and magnified. If you never heard that, you
latch on to what I just said. You just heard the most vital,
the gospel. The gospel is what you just heard.
The essence of the gospel. And because that one is God in
human flesh who died on the cross, He is also the justifier. He declared God just and He justified
His people. So that I can't boast of anything. I can't boast that I kept the
law. Christ kept it. I can't boast that I justified
myself. God justified me. That's the
Scripture. Romans 3 declares it. Romans
8 declares it. Romans 5 declares it. Romans
4 declares it. The whole Bible declares it.
This is the Gospel. He came to declare the righteousness
of God. How that God can be just and
the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus. That's why we say we're
not making void the law through faith. Faith is the only way
you establish the law. Because Christ is the only one
who established it. And only believing on Him do
you establish love. Stop working to try to come to
God. God won't receive your works. They stink. God won't have them. Now Christ came to do that work
and He did that work. That's what He meant on the cross
when He said it's finished. And Christ bore witness to all
men that Christ finished that work and God is satisfied with
that work. How did He do it? He was delivered
for our offenses. and He was raised again for our
justification. God raised Him up declaring,
I'm satisfied. Hear Him, believe on Him, trust
Him, look to Him, look away from you, look away from any other
man, cease ye from man whose breath is in his nostrils, trust
Christ alone, look to my Son alone, and you shall be saved.
Now that's the Gospel. But you take away This message. God comes and He gives faith
through this message, through this preaching. He gives faith
and life in the hearts of each of His children so that He gets
the glory for that. By grace are you saved through faith and
that's not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. Lest any
man should boast. We'd brag if we had any part
in this. God does it all. And so when
He sends that message and you believe on Him, This is where
we rest. This is how we're saved from
our sins. But you see, if Christ be not raised, your faith is
vain and you're still in your sins. You see, this is the corruption
of the human heart. This is how badly we fell in
Adam. when we fell in the garden. This
is how badly we fell. Why would anybody deny the gospel? Why would anybody deny the resurrection? Sinner, this is the only hope
any of us have. But you see, depravity is so
bad. You who don't believe are so
ignorant in your sin. You would rather deny the resurrection
and deny Christ and count your faith and everybody else's faith
vanity and die in your sins than to declare God true and have
a man alive. Isn't that backwards? Isn't that
the enmity of the human heart? Here's the fifth thing, verse
18, 1 Corinthians 15, 18. If Christ is not risen, then
they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. Now,
sleep here does not mean some preach that this refers to Believers
who are just disobedient believers, and so they're slumbering and
sleeping. This is referring to believers who have already died,
been buried. To die is to be present with
the Lord. When you die, the Spirit's going
to go be with the Lord immediately. Christ told the thief on the
cross, this day you'll be with me in paradise. But, The body
will sit in the grave for a while. And so it's just referred to
as sleeping. As sleeping. But it says here,
every beloved brother and sister in Christ who died in faith before,
they're perished if Christ is not risen. If Christ is not risen,
they just died like dogs. You see how evil falsehood is? It would not only destroy Christ's
work, not only would it destroy the Christian faith, not only
would it seek to destroy each person's individual faith, it
seeks to destroy the faith of saints that lived in the past.
That's wicked, isn't it? That's falsehood. That's unbelief.
Here's the sixth thing. If in this life only we have
hope in Christ, we're of all men most miserable. You see,
God's saints are pilgrims passing through this world. Beautiful
picture of it. When God brought the children
of Israel out of bondage in Egypt, they just passed through the
wilderness to the land God promised. They weren't tenants in that
wilderness. They weren't putting down roots
and building houses and staying in that wilderness. They were
just passing through it on their way to the promised land. That's
what we are. God forms these little bodies like this, His
local church, and He compacts us together, and He feeds us
through this gospel, and He strengthens us through this gospel, and what
we're doing, the world doesn't even know it. The world doesn't
even recognize what's happening. We're together just passing right
through this world, right on the way to the promised land,
that God's promised. Heavenly glory with God. That
city that has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. That's
what we're doing. But you see, our hope is we're going to rise
with Christ. Our hope is we're going to be
like Christ one day. Our hope is we're going to be
with Christ forever one day. There's going to be a new heavens
and a new earth. It's going to be like this one, but there's
going to be no sin in it. There's going to be perfection
in it. Everything that will be there will be righteousness.
And we will eat and sleep and breathe and work and enjoy each
other and have a nice time and be with Christ and worship Christ.
When we assemble, you're not going to hear a man preach. You're
going to hear Christ preach. We'll worship Him. But you see,
these wise and prudent men who want to count all this vanity,
they're hope killers. That's what they are. They would
take all of that and just dash it to pieces and kill hope. Oh, we're proponents of hope.
No, you're not. You're killers of hope. Men who
deny this message are killers of hope. They would have this
all to be vanity. Now, lastly, Paul declares the
truth of the resurrection. 1 Corinthians 15, 20. But now
is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of
them that sleep. When I was in the 8th grade,
I started planting a garden. And I planted a garden all through
school. When I went to Tennessee, I had
a garden. We had a garden out, one place
we lived on this big farm, and it was an acre, big garden. And I used to love, look forward
to those first ripe vegetables, those first vegetables that would
come off the vine, especially purple hull peas. I wanted that
first mess of purple hull peas. It was so good to me. That's
firstfruits, the very firstfruits. In the law of God, the very firstfruits,
the firstfruits that came off the vine that were harvested,
God said, bring them to the altar. Bring them to my altar and give
them to God. They would wave them before God.
And what they were doing was they were giving God all the
glory for producing those fruits. They were giving God all the
glory for that whole harvest because in those firstfruits,
that whole harvest was sanctified. Everything that would come, just
like the first fruits were of God, everything else was of God.
And that's what they were declaring. Everything we have is of God's
hand. Now listen to this. On the Sunday after the Passover,
the Sunday after the Passover, that's when Israel was to bring
a handful of these first fruits of their harvest and wave them
before the Lord. It was this very day. that the
Lord Jesus Christ arose from the dead. And He fulfilled that
scripture being the express image of that picture. That was a picture. He's the express image of it.
He is the first fruits. He came out of that grave and
became the firstfruits of the resurrection. By presenting the
firstfruits, they were saying every product of the soil, every
work of that man's labor and toil was of the Lord and belonged
to the Lord and was to the Lord's praise and glory. And when Christ
came out of that grave and presented Himself to the Father, He was
saying that that work on the cross, the redemption He accomplished,
the resurrection, are all the works of God. Every bit of it. Our salvation, our redemption,
our atonement, our reconciliation, our everything regarding our
salvation is all of the Lord. That's what Christ declared when
He came forth. He's deceived. Let's go back
to how this happened. He's the seed. Remember he said,
unless a seed goes in the ground and is broken, it abides alone. If it doesn't die, all you have
is just a withered up little dead seed. But if it goes in
that ground and dies and is broken, from it is going to come a vine.
And it's going to rise up. And from it is going to come
branches that are going to bear fruit. Christ is that seed that
came down from glory to this earth. He is that seed who loved
not His life unto death. He is that seed that loved God
and His people more than Himself, who laid down His life on Calvary's
cross to be broken in the room instead of His people. And because
He laid down His life and His body was buried, from Him rose
up Christ Divine. And He arose the first fruit,
the first fruit, the first fruit. And from Him all the other fruit
is produced. All of His people. And God gets
all the glory for every aspect of the salvation of His people.
Listen to this from Colossians 1.18. He is the head of the body,
the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
that in all things He might have preeminence. Christ is the head
of the church. He's the head of His people.
He's the head of everybody that He represented in this world. He's the head. But also, listen
to this, He's the firstborn from the dead. He's preeminent as
the firstborn from the dead. Well, if you know anything about
scriptures, you know He wasn't the first one that was resurrected.
There was Lazarus, Jairus' daughter. There was several in the hotel.
You can go and look. There's quite a few people that
actually was raised from the dead before Christ was. How is
it then He's the first? They all were raised back to
life, but they died again. And they're going to have to
be resurrected again. Christ is the first one born to immortality. and to glory, never to die again. The first one. And He tread that
path through the grave for His people, to glory for His people
as our forerunner, guaranteeing all His people, the grave is
sanctified by Christ. We're going to go there and the
grave of the believer is holy and separate from every other
person that died. We're going to be raised immortal.
to glory with Christ. Now let me tell you something.
You think about this now. I try to tell you this all the
time. What will you have to do with this work? What will you
have to do with this work? What will you contribute to it?
Nothing. The same is true of every other
aspect of your salvation. Your wisdom, your righteousness,
your sanctification, your redemption, you don't contribute one thing
to it. Just like you don't contribute
a thing to the resurrection, Christ gets the glory. He has
all preeminence because He is the firstborn. And when He rose
up then, we rose up in Him right then. Ephesians 2, 5 says, we
were quickened together with Christ by grace. He raised us
up together. He made us sit down together
in heavenly places in Christ when He arose. We arose with
Him representatively, spiritually in Him. And that guarantees,
brethren, by His irresistible grace, we're going to be born
of His Spirit, and then when we die physically, our bodies
are going to be raised with Him too. Listen to Romans 8, 10.
If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the
Spirit is life because of righteousness. You're alive in the new man.
And when you die, there's going to be nothing that needs to be
done to that new man. Not anything's going to need
to be done with him because he's holy. You're going to go in spirit
and be with the Lord right away. And he says, but if the spirit
of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that
raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal
bodies by his spirit that dwelleth in you. Your bodies also are
going to be raised and they will be changed. They will be made
incorruptible. glorified and go into glory with
Him. So what he is saying here, the
first fruit is the best. Christ is the best. The first
fruit sanctified the rest. Christ sanctified all His people.
The first fruits were the same kind with the rest of the fruit.
Christ is not the first fruit of the briars and the chaff and
those that don't believe on Him. He is only the first fruits of
His people. They are made just like Him by God's grace. Let
me end with this. I'm going a little long, but
I want to ask you this. Do you believe that you're going
to die? I know you believe that. You'd
be a fool not to. But do you live like you really
do believe you're going to die and that there's no certainty
to this life? And do you live as though you really believe
you are going to be raised and stand before Christ in judgment. You see, you believe something.
You act like you don't, but you believe something. Everybody
believes something. But you see, one day, if you
pass from this life not trusting on Christ, not believing on Christ,
not entirely shutting yourself up to Christ, Your faith is going
to be found vain. Your belief system is going to
be found out to be vain. You see, just as there are weighty
consequences if Christ be not risen, there are weighty consequences
if He is. For you who don't believe Him.
He is the Lord of the dead and of the living. He has the keys
of death and hell. You don't get in a place unless
you got the keys. Christ got the keys. He's going
to return to this world and judge this world in righteousness and
you're going to stand there before Him in judgment. Like I said
to you Thursday night, while I'm trying to make my good outweigh
my bad, all your good and all your bad is going to be on the
same side of the scale. And Christ is the one you're going to be
judged against if you meet God without Christ. And you won't
be the righteousness of God. You won't have the righteousness
required. The only way is to believe and rest in Him. And
if you don't now, the weighty consequences are your belief
system going to be found vain and you're going to be cast out.
But for us who believe Him, take everything Paul said there and
reverse it now. Since Christ is risen, our preaching
is not vain and the whole body of truth we believe is not vain.
Verse 17, since Christ is risen, our faith is not vain and we're
not in our sins anymore. Verse 18, every saint who's died
before us is now with Him in spirit and soon will be with
Him in body and spirit. And right now, we who believe
on Christ have a good hope in Christ, a future glory with Him. It's a sure thing. Verse 58 says,
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always
abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as you know that
your labor is not in vain in the Lord. Amen. Let's stand together and we'll
take a short break. Our great God and our Father,
we thank you for your word. Thank you that you use even the
unbelief and the lies. Show us these consequences to
them that we might behold the gospel in those. What a God that
can take even the lies of men and preach the truth from it. Show us how vain they are. how untrustworthy they are. Lord,
make us trust Christ. Now make this word go forth in
power, in your power, and give us faith to believe on you, trust
you. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.