All right, if you would open
your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. We're going to begin reading
at verse 20 and read through verse 28. But Christ has indeed been raised
from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through
a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.
For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive,
but each in his own turn. Christ the firstfruits, then
when he comes, those who belong to him. Then the end will come
when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has
destroyed all dominion, authority, and power. For he must reign
until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy
to be destroyed is death, for he has put everything under his
feet. Now, when it says that everything
has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include
God himself, who put everything under Christ. When he has done
this, then the son himself will be made subject to him who put
everything under him so that God may be all in all. The subject this morning is found
in the beginning of verse 24. Then the end will come. This world This universe had
a beginning. The Bible begins with in the
beginning. This world had a beginning and
it will have an end. And this entire history of our
world and its beginning and end is encompassed by two men. In verse 21, it says, for since
death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes
also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in
Christ all will be made alive. One of the things that Brother
Henry Mahan said on several occasions while I was a member at that
church, it has stuck with me all these years, and it does
kind of provide a good paradigm through which to look at the
scriptures and even world history. He said, from God's viewpoint,
there have been only two men. the first Adam and the second
Adam. Adam in the garden and our Lord
Jesus Christ. All the rest of us are considered
either in Adam or in Christ. And all that this world for all
that we experience in this world, and everything that happens in
this world is somehow connected to those two men. The beginning of our world was
Adam. Now, I realize he wasn't at the
beginning of creation. He didn't come along till the
sixth day. But his fall His rebellion marked
the beginning of our world as we know it and experience it. It's the world of sin, decay,
and death. It's the world we were born into.
It's the world we live in. And since we are part of this
world, it's the world we'll die in. unless, of course, the Lord
returns before our natural death. We are, in this life, subject
to sin, decay, and death. Now Christ marks the end of that
world. Christ created a perfect world.
He is the creator. Adam ruined that world, that
is, through his fall, he made it subject to sin, decay, and
death. But Christ is going to bring
an end to the ruination wrought by Adam, and is going to bring
this world to its predetermined end. Christ will do that. And what we might call the beginning
of the end of this world as we experience it, the beginning
of the end, came at Christ's resurrection. Now the beginning of our world
came suddenly, as immediately upon Adam's sin. Death, decay, ruination just
instantly fell on, Paul says, the entire creation. The whole
universe became subject. It was ruined by the fall of
Adam. But the end of this ruined, dying
world is arriving, we might say, in two steps. the beginning of
the end came when Christ was raised from the dead. The scriptures
say our Lord died unto sin once. He died under the conditions
created by Adam, but he arose as the beginning of a new world. He is the firstborn from the
dead, the firstfruits of them that sleep. Let me read you four
scriptures. We'll, to save time, we'll not
turn to each one of them. I'll just read them to you. 1
Corinthians 15, 22, of course, we're right there. But it says,
for as in Adam all die, that was the beginning of this world
as we know it. So in Christ shall all be made
alive. But each in his own turn, Christ
the firstfruits, and then later, us who are his people. That's the two-step thing. Romans
6, 9 says, for we know that since Christ was raised from the dead,
he cannot die again. Now that's an important point
to take note of. He cannot die again. Death no longer has mastery
or dominion over him. The death that he died, he died
to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. Colossians 1, verse 18 says,
and he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning
and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything
he might have the supremacy. And then in Revelation 1, verse
5, it speaks of Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness,
the firstborn, from the dead and the ruler of the kings of
the earth. When God raised our Lord Jesus
Christ from the dead, it was not like when the Lord Jesus
raised Lazarus from the dead. When the Lord Jesus raised Lazarus
from the dead, death still had dominion over Lazarus. He did
not go from death to life. He went from death to dying.
Now, that's not in any way to take
away from the greatness of the work Christ did. It's just to
illustrate the difference between how Christ was raised from the
dead and how Lazarus was. Lazarus was simply restored to
the life he previously had. and he picked up where he left
off. He's the only guy, I suppose,
if they'd have had a tombstone, it would have said Lazarus, born,
I'm just making up some numbers, you know, 5 A.D., died, 25 A.D.,
and 75 A.D., you know, he died twice. But our Lord, when God
raised him from the dead, He cannot die again. Now notice, cannot. Not just
that he will not, he cannot. And why is that? Because death
no longer has dominion over him. He doesn't live in the land of
death anymore. He does not live in this world. Yes, he was physically present
on this earth, but He himself was part of that new heavens
and new earth. In this passage of Scripture,
as Paul gives more details about the whole idea of resurrection,
He said the body that is sown, that is, you know, we die and
we're buried. He was using the example of you
plant seeds in the ground, then the plant comes from it. He said
the body that is sown, it's not like the body that's going to
come up. It was sown in weakness. It shall
raise in power. It was sown a natural body. It shall be raised a spiritual
body. Now, I don't know what that is.
But all I know is this, when Christ came back, he was different. He was the same person, but he
was different. Remember it said that he was gonna go to Jerusalem,
and he must needs go through Samaria. Now I don't think that
that means in order to fulfill the plan of God, he had to go
to Samaria. Simply between where he was in
Jerusalem was Samaria. So the only way for him to get
to Jerusalem was just like you and I would have had to do. We
had to walk there or ride an animal, and the path was through
Samaria. When he raised from the dead,
he could be anywhere he wanted to be instantly. Closed doors couldn't keep him
out of a room anymore. than the stone over his tomb
could keep him in. He suddenly appears to disciples
on the road to Emmaus and as suddenly disappears. That's a spiritual body. Now,
like I said, I can't do anything more than just simply lay out
what we see of our Lord Jesus Christ here. But Christ was born
under the law, therefore He was born under that system which
gives sin and death its power. And when our sins were laid on
Him, He became subject to sin and death. But such was the greatness
of His death, the death that He accomplished, the death that
He finished, that the sins He bore were gone. And if you have no sin, if you have no sin, death has
no dominion over you. You are no longer living in the
land of death. Christ was born under the law,
but he did not raise from the dead under the law. And we who are in Him, while
naturally born under the law, in Him, we are not under the
law. If we were, we would be subject to sin, decay, and death. You say, well, aren't we? In
this flesh, we are. But the Lord's gonna fix that
eventually, too. But spiritually speaking, and that newly created
spirit within us, we are not subject to the law, sin, and
death. The end shall come with the resurrection
of all who are asleep in Jesus and the changing of all who are
still living when Christ returns. Now, understand that when our
Lord returns, every one of his people that have already departed
this life, their bodies will be raised from the dead. That's going to be a remarkable
change, isn't it? I mean, when you consider that
the bodies of many of our brethren are little more than rich dirt
right now, and may be scattered to the four winds. Some of them
have been eaten by animals. Some of them have been burned. Well, to get that all back together
and make a body out of it again, that's a remarkable thing. But
no less remarkable will be the change that is wrought in the
bodies of every one of God's people who are alive on that
day. It'll take no less power. to change these vile bodies into
one like the body of Christ than it will be, than it will take
to raise them from the dead or collect their molecules from
the air or wherever it may be and reassemble them into a living
being. Why? Because it is a change,
an utter and complete change from one world unto the next. Now let's look at three things
about the end. What kind of end is it? How is that end defined and how
does that end come about? Well, first, what kind of end
does Paul refer to? Because there is more than one
kind of end. There is a kind of end which
is simply a termination. Things stop. There is no question that this
world as we know it will be terminated. It's not going to go on like
this forever. It shall cease to exist. Peter speaks of the
elements burning with a fervent heat and a new heavens and new
earth replacing this heavens and earth. Then there's the kind
of end which signifies reaching a goal. In this sense, the action
that is terminated is terminated simply because we have come to
the end of, or come to the goal that we hope to reach by it.
Let me illustrate. Imagine you plan a trip to Hawaii
for vacation. Someone once said preachers always
bring up things that apply to them, so I'm kind of cluing you,
someday I hope I can go to Hawaii. Imagine you plan a trip to Hawaii
for vacation, and you buy your plane ticket, and on the appointed
day, you board the jet, and it takes off for Hawaii. However,
somewhere along the way, sometime during the trip, the plane experiences
mechanical failure, and it crashes, killing everyone on board, including
you. Your trip terminated right there,
didn't it? But it never reached its goal.
Your trip ended, but never reached its end. You see what I mean
by the difference between there's more than one kind of end? Well,
it's in the second sense that Paul speaks there in verse 24,
then the end will come. In fact, well, it's the reaching
of a goal. It's the realization of a purpose. Actually, the word there is the
same word that Jesus Christ used when he said, it is finished. And strictly speaking right here,
it doesn't say the end shall come. It just says, then the
end. And the reason for that is, of course, Most of your ancient languages,
seeing as that all writing had to be done by hand, they tried
to abbreviate things as much as they could. And when a part
of a sentence was easily understood from the context, they didn't
bother putting it in. In that little sentence, there
is no verb. It just says, then the end. But it's not simply
saying the end will come. I remember, you know, in the
60s and 70s, when I was coming of age, there were a lot of these
apocalyptic type prophets. Some of them in religion, some
of them were just, you know, these, I don't think it was mostly
people whose heads weren't exactly attached to reality, but you'd
see them and they'd have a sign, the end is near. And all they
meant was destruction. They thought for sure this world
was coming to an end. But they weren't thinking of
anything like the world reaching its goal. They just were thinking more
like the plane crash rather than the trip coming to an end because
you reached your destination. Well, Paul's talking about reaching
a destination, achieving a goal, realizing a
purpose. And so it might better be translated,
then the goal will be reached, or then the purpose will be realized. This world
was created for a purpose. There was a goal in mind when
God created the world. Adam's fall changed the world,
but it did not change the goal of this world. We must not look
at Adam's fall as an overthrow of the purpose of God. It wasn't. We must not think that Adam's
fall resulted in God scrapping his so-called original plan and
coming up with a plan B. We are not living in God's plan
B because God never made a plan
B. Adam's fall was every bit as
much a part of plan A as any other aspect of God's original
plan. There has only ever been a plan
A. And what we experience in our
short lives, and in the scheme of things, our lives are short,
aren't they? In the experience of our short
time in this world, it's a part, and a very small part, of God's
plan. And that's why sometimes it seems
to us like things are going out of control. Why? We can't see
the whole picture. You know, if you're looking at
your computer screen and you see a picture, in some sense
you're not really seeing a picture. You are seeing millions of little
dots called pixels that are assembled, arranged in such a way that there
is a picture. Now, if you were to zoom in on
that to where you saw only a tiny part. Say you could get close enough,
and we had lenses in our eyes like a microscope, and we could
get right down there and see individual pixels, maybe only
one pixel at a time. If that's all we saw, we'd have
no clue what the picture is. And our lives, continuing with
this illustration, our lives are just a few pixels of a huge picture that God has
designed. And if we try to give meaning
and significance to our existence by looking only at those few
little pixels we can see. Why, we're gonna be all over
the place. Some days, we may see a green pixel. I don't even
know if there is a green. Maybe that's a combination of
a blue and a yellow one, I don't know. But however they do that,
we see green. Well, green's nice, green's good,
green's full of life. Green makes us feel good. And while our life passes through
that green pixel, everything's going great. I know I'm on my
way to heaven. I'm one of God's. He's blessing
me. Everything's good. And then a little bit later,
suddenly we're on a black pixel. Utterly dark. And if we look
at that pixel, that's all we can see. And we try to interpret
things based upon that dot of darkness. we're going to start thinking,
I've been abandoned. I guess I don't belong to God. And sometimes it's a whole lot
of black dots in a row. Everything is going exactly according
to God's plan, even though we can't see the whole plan. God
has not nor will he ever need to adjust his plan to accommodate
some unintended event or something that surprised him.
Whatever happens, we can say this is part of God's plan to
bring about his desired end. There are things which may surprise
us, but nothing surprises God. God has never said, uh-oh, going to have to do something
about that. Never. One of the reasons people
think God has had to change His plan is that people do not know
the goal that God had in mind when He made His eternal plan
in Christ. Once you know the goal, then
you can see something of how the pieces fit. Or at least, if you don't see
how they fit, into God's desired goal. By faith, you can say,
well, I couldn't see how they fit, but I know that they do.
This is part of it. In answer to the question, what
kind of end does Paul speak of when he said, then the end? It's
the kind of end that comes about because the goal has been reached,
the original purpose. has been realized. Well, that
leads us to our second question. How is that end defined? That is, what is the goal that
is to be reached? We cannot discern the purpose
of God by observing the events of our little slice of time on
Ecclesiastes 3 tells us that God has put the world, this world,
and our little tiny piece in it, he has put the world in our
hearts so that we can't understand what he's doing. That is, we can't understand
it by looking at the world or looking at us in this little
blip of time we live in. However, God's purpose has been
revealed. He's told us what it is. And
it's not what most people think it is. In particular, it's not what
most religious people think it is. God's purpose is not the happiness
of human beings. most atheists that I have heard,
I've listened, seen them on videos or whatever, they don't believe in God, or
say they don't believe in God, and when you find out why, it's really more they don't like
God, that's what it is, because they don't like what he's doing.
One of them, who's a celebrity on several levels, but he was
being interviewed and questioned about his professed atheism. And he said, well, if there is
a God, he must be horrible, horrible. And he goes, childhood cancer,
what's the deal with that? Well, that's not a man not believing
in God, that's just a man doesn't like the way God does things,
and doesn't understand why God does it. And while we can say that about
that guy, because he's pretty obvious about it, we're kind
of the same way. Things happen, and in our minds,
we can't fit them into a program that ends with our salvation,
our eternal happiness, and therefore we either get upset, angry, or
afraid. But Paul says we don't live by
sight. We don't live according to what we perceive of those
few pixels that make up our lives. We live by faith. And we live by faith in what? Well, personally, we live by
faith in God, but also we live by faith because we have been
told what the big picture is. It's been revealed to us. Now,
it's not been revealed to everybody. And those who do not know the
big picture are gonna get upset over the few pixels they see. One of the reasons, or I believe
that one of the reasons that, oh, I forgot a point here and
I don't want to miss it. It's not the happiness of human
beings. It's not even the salvation of sinners. Not even the salvation
of his elect. That's not the goal. That is
part of the means or the path to the goal. But that is not
the goal and purpose of this universe, of this world. I believe that one of the reasons
that people do not believe in the absolute sovereignty of God
is that they have no clue what God's purpose is, therefore they
can see no way that the present course of events will lead to
the realization of God's purpose. Thus they conclude that all things
are out of control, or that some things are out of control, and
God's purpose will never be perfectly achieved. They say things like,
God wants to do such and such. God is trying to do something. Friends, and I tell you, I say
this, and maybe I say it with a little bit of Stoutness in
my voice, I don't know. It's something I rejoice in.
I think it's wonderful. God doesn't want anything. He's
not trying to do anything. Because to want something means
to desire something you don't have or can't get. And to try
something means there's doubt whether you will get it accomplished. I want a lot of things, and I've
tried a lot of things. Naturally speaking, still wanting
and still trying. God has never wanted and God
has never tried. He says, I will do all my purpose. He is described in the book of
Ephesians as the one who works all things according to the counsel
of his own will. If things appear to be out of
control, instead of questioning whether God is in control, we
need to question whether we understand what it is God is doing. Now
God's purpose is found in verse 28. Let's look at it. It's the
last part of verse 28. So that, which means to this
end, to this end, that God may be all in all. Now, man doesn't like that, because
man wants to be all in all. And if you don't think so, have
a kid. That's all you got to do, have
a child. And you will find out that as
soon as that child begins to express a will, here's what his
will is, everything should revolve around me. During the Renaissance period,
you know, the Reformation and the Renaissance, they all happened
at the same time. was in the world of religion.
The Renaissance is what happened in the secular world and involved
secular philosophy, but the slogan of the Renaissance was essentially
this, man is the measure of all things. Well, the Reformation produced
some truth, truth that you and I believe. truth upon which we
hang our understanding of all things. The Renaissance produced
the foolishness of man, or Paul calls it the wisdom of man. But
the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of man. Man thinks
he's the center of the universe. My social science professor,
You know, they got big words, and one of them was anthropocentrism,
which means man-centered. But he defined it this way. He
said, to have that anthropocentrism is to believe that the axis of
the world goes through my backyard. No wonder they can't understand
the world. They think they're the center
of it. And it's not working out. I suppose the whole business
of growing up and even growing old all the time, what we are
learning is that what we thought as infants, as little children,
that we're the center of everything. We are being taught throughout
our lives, no, you are not. The problem is most people never
really learn the lesson. They keep fighting that truth.
God. Is the center. God is the reason
God is all in all. Our universe exists because of
God, not just in the sense because it created it, but in the sense
that this is what God wanted. It's only here because God wanted
it to be here. And it's only the way it is because
that's the way God wanted it to be. That's it. And if you understand that, then you can begin to believe
that, well, I guess this does fit into His plan somehow or
another. I don't know how, but it is part of His plan. What
does it mean for God to be all in all? Well, one thing is certain,
God has always been all in all in the sense that He is the reason
for everything. He's the reason it came into
being, and His glory is the purpose or the goal to which it is moving. So when it says, so that God
may be all in all, it does not mean that At that point, God
shall become all in all. It means that at that point,
God will be recognized. It will be obvious that this whole thing has been
about him. That from the time he said, let
there be light, until he extinguishes that light. Everything has been
designed to show He is God. He is everything. He is the only thing that gives
meaning and significance to what we experience. For God to be Made all in all,
it means that every creature will recognize and acknowledge
that Jehovah is God, and indeed has always been God, and is rightfully
acknowledged as God. That isn't going on right now,
is it? Now he is God, always has been God, and it's only right
that people acknowledge him as God But that ain't happening
right now. It will. It will. It means that all will recognize
and acknowledge that this whole universe finds its meaning and
significance in God and the accomplishment of his purpose in this universe. It means that every speck of
the universe will openly and obviously point to the glory
and majesty of the God who made it. And it means that every event
that has ever happened will be reconciled to the goodness of
God because of its connection to God. You say, what do you
mean by that? Well, one of the problems that
atheists or skeptics have is that, well, you can't say that
God is all powerful and all good when we see these kind of things
going on. He either lacks the power or
the will to do good. Well, they're gonna find out
someday. They will, they will like it, but they're gonna find
out everything is connected to the goodness of God. It means that Eli's words in response
to the news of the death of his sons will be seen as applicable
to every event of history. They came to Eli and said, your
sons are dead. And you know what Eli said? It
is the Lord. Let him do whatever seems good
in his sight. Wow. And brethren, no matter what
news you get, in your heart, let this be your first words. It is the Lord. Let Him do whatever
seems good to Him. You and I already know this principle,
but we cannot always see how it can be. We are not completely
reconciled to everything God is doing, because there's nothing
perfect about us. Some of his actions confuse us,
bewilder us, and maybe even anger us. But if we can learn, even as we just see the few pixels
of our life, particularly when they're very dark, to say this,
as much as any other little dot, it is the Lord. Now, how will this goal be accomplished? In a very real sense, this goal
is being accomplished by everything that happens. But Paul sums it
up in four things. the resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead. This whole chapter is about the
gospel and is particularly dealing with the resurrection of Christ,
because there were some in Corinth denying the resurrection. And Paul is proving that point. And in the proof of that point,
right in the middle of it, is this section we're looking at.
And he says, that Christ has been raised from the dead, and
that because he is raised from the dead, he's the firstfruits,
and what are the firstfruits? The firstfruits are the guarantee
of a full harvest. So when Christ raised from the
dead, that guaranteed that everyone in him shall in turn be raised
from the dead. There's no such thing as firstfruits
without the full harvest within the concept, within the way the
scriptures handle it. He is the firstborn from the
dead and also the firstborn among many brethren. So the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead. And then the subjugation of all
things to Jesus Christ. It says that all things are put
under his feet. God says, sit here at my right
hand till I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. And
that's what's happening right now. Now again, we don't see
the whole of it. We just see a little bit of it.
And sometimes we're thinking, we might be led to think if we're
just looking at, again, those few pixels we're thinking, it's
getting out of control here. We're coming into a presidential
election, and I'll guarantee you there's going to be people
that think that God needs this candidate or that candidate.
And if whatever their candidate is doesn't win, they think that
somehow or another it's going to be harmful to the purpose
of God. Really? Come on. Nebuchadnezzar, one of the most
powerful kings ever to walk the earth, did exactly what God determined
for him to do. And when he got too big for his
britches, what did God do? And Nebuchadnezzar loses his
mind and for seven years lives like a beast, walking, crawling
around on all fours, eating grass. I don't think Nebuchadnezzar
made a whole lot of difference to God's plan, do you? Nebuchadnezzar
was God's plan. All things are being brought
into subjection to Jesus Christ. Right now, the king of the universe
is a man, the man Christ Jesus. And he rules it all under the
authority of God. Thirdly, the end comes about,
the purpose is accomplished by Christ's return and the resurrection
of the people of God. He says here in verse 26, the
last enemy to be destroyed is death. Now, that's a remarkable thing to
consider. Not just that death, that we'll
be safe from it, death will be destroyed. When you and I are raised from
the dead, it will be as when the Lord was raised from the
dead. Death will no longer have dominion over us. We cannot die. And then lastly, the subjection
of the Son to God who is the one who subjected all things
to him. Now this throws people for a
loop, because they say, well, isn't
the Son God? Yes, he is. So why is he in subjection to
God? Well, part of the problem is
just in the mystery of the incarnation. But when it talks about the Son,
It's not talking about God the Son, a member of the Trinity.
It's talking about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Jesus Christ, the mediator between
God and men. And the man Christ Jesus, right
now, universal ruler. God, he says, has committed all
things into his hand. And when he has brought this
world to its predetermined destination, he shall have finished everything. And he will, as it were, turn
to God his father and say, here, here. This doesn't take anything away
from the Lord Jesus Christ. It merely shows us the mystery of the will of God
that in becoming a man, he has made a man the king of
the universe, and yet brings man in subjection, so that in
the end, we see that all of this was about God. Now let me make a little application
here. I talked about a plane. Use that
illustration. Well, brethren, we're in a plane. We've been told what the destination
is. we know who the pilot is. This whole business about God
is my co-pilot. If God's your co-pilot, you're
gonna crash. God is the pilot and he doesn't, or Christ is
the pilot and he doesn't need or have a co-pilot. But we're
flying in this plane and we're in our seat. And there are times we hit some
turbulence And I don't know about you, I understand planes can
handle that, but isn't it scary when, you know, we're gonna drop
out of the sky? You may look out your window
and an engine's on fire. And you're gonna think, we're
going down, all is lost, I'm gonna perish. Remember who's at the controls. Remember who pilots the plane. Stay in your seat. No need to worry. There's never
going to be a depressurization requiring masks to drop down.
You're never going to have to fold yourself over in crash position. You're never going to have to
concern yourself. with how to use your seat as
a flotation device. Because no matter how much turbulence
there is, or how many engines catch on
fire, that plane is not going down. It will not crash because Christ
is in the captain's seat. And at the appointed time, that
plane will land safely at its predetermined destination. And
when you get off, you'll be standing on the tarmac of a new heavens
and a new earth where every particle shouts the name of God. where
every breath you take fills you with a sense of his presence,
where every sight you see so magnifies his glory. It's unmistakable. And from that
position, you'll be able to back up from the few pixels of your
natural life and see the whole glorious picture. And you will say, as is written
in the scripture, he's done all things well. And you will be filled with a
joy unspeakable. Until then, hang on. Don't get worried. The end is coming. but not a
destructive end, at least not to us. The appointed end, the
goal. And it will be wonderful. So
wonderful, I can't tell you what it is. The book of Revelation tried
to describe it. No more death, no more curse. no more crying, no more sorrow. I've heard people say, oh, when
we get to heaven, we're gonna regret, but we're not gonna regret
anything. We'll be able to see that even
in our most grievous falls, God was bringing to pass his
purpose. wonderful beyond words. May the
Lord add his.