Let's open our Bibles to the
book of 1 Corinthians chapter 15. I was actually working on a message,
another message from Revelation chapter 8 and I was working on
my introduction. Well, the introduction developed
into an entire message, and so we'll get back to Revelation
8, the Lord willing, next Sunday morning. But I do feel like the
Spirit of God led me to this, and I hope it will be magnifying
to our God, and it will be of benefit to all of his dear children. And maybe God will be pleased
even to use the gospel as it goes forth today to rescue one
of his lost sheep. You know, about 6,000 years ago,
give or take a few, God made this world and he made all things
in it The scripture says on the day number six of creation, he
made Adam and he breathed into his nostrils the very breath
of life. And everything in that garden
was very much alive. There was no corruption, no decay. Nothing like the world is today. There was no death. Only life. No wonder it's called paradise.
No death. Just life. It was a perfect world. Immaculate. An immaculate garden. God put them in. A garden filled
with beauty, full of all sorts of flowers and shrubs and bushes
and trees. There were all kinds of fruit
trees that bore crops, bore fruit that never had to spray them
for bugs. Whatever garden maybe Adam planted,
he never had any pestilence. No difficulty with any kind of
pests that would eat up his crops. He just picked the produce, ate
it, enjoyed it. There was no disease. It was a garden full of animals.
None of them were wild. Think of it, all were domesticated. Even the animals today that are
wild, back then they weren't. They weren't even meat eaters
back then. They just grazed in lush meadows. As in Isaiah talks about the
wolf dwelling with the lamb, that's the way it was. They just
lay there together. Got along just fine. It was a day of no kind of pollution. Everything was pure. Everything
was free from any kind of contamination. In that original garden, everything
was full of life. In fact, I would say that ever
since Adam fell, We must say that there's never
been a time in the history of the world that was so full of
life as it was before Adam's fall. It's absolutely full of
life. And the man that God made Adam,
he was full of vitality, full of energy. Didn't get old, didn't get feeble,
full of strength. Never got sick. No such thing
as disease. He used, think about his intellect. He'd named all the animals. Did
you know that? This is a very intelligent man.
He said, boy, I don't know how a fellow could do that. Well,
take away this awful thing called sin. It would be amazing what
we could do, wouldn't it? But he was, you're talking about
a genius. He would have been a genius.
Because he never lost any of these brain cells like we lose. The garden was full of life. You know, God told Adam of every
tree of the garden they may as freely eat, but of the He said,
of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat
of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely
die. I don't know. Things went well
for a while. God gave Adam a wife. After the
fall, Adam gave his wife a name, Eve. After the fall, she got
the name, the mother of all living. Her name means life giver. because
each of us descended from Eve. But I really think her name was
the name that Adam gave to her, Eve, the mother of all living.
I think the reason he gave her that name was because of the
message of God after they fell, God said, the seed of the woman
is coming. And therefore, he gave right
after the fall, in fact, right after that, after God said that,
just a couple of verses down. Adam gave to his wife a name
Eve. She's the mother of all living.
That is, she'll be the mother of the one who's going to come
to straighten things out. Well, actually, she didn't give
birth to the one, but many, many, many years later, one of her
descendants did. Mary gave birth to the Lord Jesus,
the Son of Man. who'd save his people from their
sin. But back to the point. Everything
in the garden was alive. And never has God's creation
been so alive as it was then. But then something happened.
Adam's transgression. And God's word came to pass. He said, The day ye thereof thou
shalt surely die. Adam ate. And he died. He died. It's like God said. How did he
die? Well, he died spiritually. He would die physically. And, except for the grace of
God, he would have died the second death. That everlasting death. But, not only did Adam die, but
all of his Offspring died too. That's the reason we're born
dead in trespasses and sins. You see, that death wasn't limited
to one man. That death was given over to
all of us. And not only to all of mankind,
but all of creation suffers from what that first man did. That's
the reason plants die, flowers die, Trees die. Animals die. All of God's creation suffers
from what that first man did. The animals, many of the animals,
they became unruly. And you buy you a dog, you're
going to have to train him. And there are some animals you
best stay away from. Because they became meat eaters. And this is the reason. S-I-N. That's the reason. That's the
reason. Now, here in 1 Corinthians chapter
15, the overall theme of 1 Corinthians chapter 15, as you know, is resurrection. The resurrection of Christ Jesus.
And consequently, the resurrection of all of His people in the final
resurrection. Look with me in 1 Corinthians
chapter 15 verse 21. 1 Corinthians 15 verse 21. For since by man came death. That is by one man. Since by one man, and you notice
that word came as italicized. Our men who translated the King
James Version did an outstanding job, and they were guided by
divine providence, and I don't have any question about that.
But they, in order to make that sentence kind of more full, more
complete, grammatically, they put that word in there, but he
says, since by man, death. Death. Death over all. By man also, there's the word
came again, by man also, that is another man. Not that first
man. That first man didn't bring life.
That first man didn't bring resurrection. That first man, he brought death. He brought death. There's going
to be another man, and he's already come. After Adam's fall, after
Adam plunged us all into spiritual death 4,000 years later, another
man came. He's the Lord of glory. By that
man, resurrection of the dead. The resurrection of the dead.
Now look at verse 22. For as in Adam, all die. Who does that all refer to? Everybody
He represented. All of Adam's seed. All of his
posterity. All who live as a result of the
corruptible seed of man all die. All die. And you know what? We're
dying today. We're dying people. I know we're
living, Like somebody wrote many years ago, that the moment we
begin to live in our mother's womb, and that heart beats, it's
beating a drum beat, a cadence, that'll end death. That drum
beat's gone in, so that heart beat's gone in someday. As in Adam, all die. I'll die
whenever it pleases God. How long am I going to live,
preacher? As long as God gives you life. As long as God sustains
you. As long as God gives you breath.
As long as He's ordained. Your months are numbered. Your
days, your hours are numbered. And you're not going to pass
that boundary. And you'll die. For as in Adam all die, we all
died in Adam. I'll show you that from Romans
5 in just a minute. Even so in Christ. In Christ shall all be made alive. Now this is another all. That
first all is pertaining to all that Adam represented. All of
his seed. The Apostle Paul writes of Christ
Jesus and he writes of His all. That is all of His seed. All
of His posterity. That is all of those given to
Him in the covenant of grace. So all that Adam represented,
they died. We died. We died in the garden. We died spiritually right then
and there. We all died. That's the reason
the Bible says, not just man upon the earth that doeth good
and sinneth not. We all die. When that man died,
we die. Even so, in Christ, something
else is going to happen. Shall all He represented be made
alive. Before the fall, no death. After
the fall, death. Before the fall, no disease. After the fall, diseases. And
that's just normal. Normal sickness and then death.
Go back to Romans 5. I want you to turn back just
to one book. Romans chapter 5. Look at Romans chapter 5. In
the book of Romans chapter 5, in verses 6 through verse 10,
we have the, here's the apostle, writing, setting forth the condition
of all of those in whose stead the Lord Jesus gave himself a
ransom. He says in verse 6, when we were
yet without strength, that's the first thing, we had no strength.
No strength. No spiritual ability. In due
time, Christ died for, here's the second way he describes this,
the ungodly, those who are without God, those who are idolatrous.
So we're without strength, number one. Number two, we're ungodly.
Again in verse 8, but God commended, God manifested, God gave full
evidence of His love toward us in that while we were yet, here's
the third word, we were sinners. All of us were sinners. Without strength, ungodly, we're
sinners. But Christ did, Christ died for
us. Much more than being now justified by His blood, we shall
be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies,
or what a way to describe us. Without strength, ungodly, sinners,
enemies. For if when we were enemies,
we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. Much more
being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. That's our condition. All of
us. The way God describes us. Now,
you get down to verse number 12, and this is where the Apostle
Paul, he gives us the origin. How did we ever get in this mess?
How did we get in this? How did we ever become without
strength and ungodly and sinners and enemies? How did we get that
way? Well, this is how we got this
way. Verse number 12, wherefore, as
by one man, oh, this is what happened, sin entered into the
world and death by sin and so death passed upon all men for
that all of sin, that is all of sin and Adam. That's what
that means, all of sin and Adam. He says, for until the law, sin
was in the world. But sin isn't imputed, it isn't
charged when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from
Adam to Moses, even though for them that had not sinned after
the same way of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him who
was to come. In other words, here's what the
apostle is doing here. He's setting forth two representative
men. And he says, on the one hand,
here's Adam. And this is the one, as he wrote
in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, this is the one in whom we died. His act of disobedience had a
devastating effect upon all of us, upon everybody he represented,
upon everybody he stood for. Like it or not, you fell through
a representative's disobedience. You did. Lucifer, he fell by act of rebellion
against God. And the third of the angels who
fell, they fell also due to their rebellion against God. But they
didn't fall in Lucifer. They didn't fall through a representative.
They fell individually. But you know, you and me, we
fell through a representative. Now, we also have our own personal
guilt. Now, we're guilty as well. But
Adam's transgression has been charged to us. That's just the
way it is. And in Adam, we died. We died. We died spiritually. And unless
God does something for us, we're going to die forever. But we're
surely going to die physically unless the Lord Jesus Christ
is coming back. But here's the good news. Thankfully,
God has given us another representative man. Actually, this representative
man was given to us before the world began. Because Christ Jesus
received us, all of His elect, all of His people, as a gift
from the Heavenly Father before He ever made the world. Adam was a figure. That's what
it says here in verse 14. Right at the end, who was a figure
of him that was to come. In what way was he a picture
of Christ Jesus? In this way. He is a representative.
He was a representative man. In this identical way. And as
you read down through the rest of Romans chapter 5, which we
don't have time to do this morning because I want to go back to
1 Corinthians 15 and show you some things there. that just
as Adam was our representative and his disobedience had a devastating
effect upon all of us, we died. Even so, in that same way, by
imputation, our Lord Jesus, our substitute, our representative,
He was obedient to the Father. His obedience extended all the
way to death. And by His obedience, everybody
He represented are made righteous. So as we fell by representative
man, we're raised up by representative man. As we became lost by representative
man, we became found by representative man. As we became unrighteous
or wicked through a representative man, we became righteous through
another representative man. And you need to understand that
and I know most of you do. So go back to 1 Corinthians chapter
15. Go back to 1 Corinthians chapter 15 then. As all death
can be traced back to Adam, physical, spiritual, in the second death,
all life is to be traced to Christ Jesus. Physical life, in Him
we live. and move and have our being,
Acts chapter 17. All physical life is to be traced
to Him, all spiritual life, the Son quickeneth whom He will. Are you alive this morning? Do
you believe the gospel of redeeming grace, of substitution and satisfaction? Do you believe the Word of God?
Do you look to Jesus Christ alone for all of your salvation, for
all of the forgiveness of your sins? Is He your only hope? It's
because you're spiritually alive. Alive! God made you alive by
His Word, the Spirit of Grace. He took the Word of God, He put
it in your heart, and that incorruptible Word of God generated life within
you. Not physical life, you already
had that, but spiritual life, something you didn't have before.
being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by
the Word of God which liveth and abideth forever. And this
is the Word which we preach unto you, even the Gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Of His own will begat He us with
the Word of truth. This is the purpose of God. He
who chose us unto salvation, who has redeemed us as a result
of the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus Christ, the promise
of the Father, the Holy Spirit has been given to us. He sent
to all of those who are the heirs of salvation. and the Spirit
of grace takes the gospel which we hear with these ears and He
puts it in the heart and miraculously and mysteriously we're made alive
and we reach out to Jesus Christ and we take hold of Him with
the arms of faith only because He took hold of us with His almighty
arms of grace. We've been made alive. We're
alive. We're not dead anymore. We're
alive unto God. We're alive to the Scriptures.
We're alive to the things that really matter. Well, now look at verse 23. 1 Corinthians 15, we read 21 and
22, look at verse 23. He's just said in verse 22, even
so in Christ shall all be made alive. In verse 23 he says, but
every man in his own order Our God is a God of order. Don't
you like orderliness? I like order. That's just the
way my mind is programmed. I like order. I don't like disarray. I don't like things being messed
up. If my office looks messed up,
believe me, it's orderly to me. I can find what I need to find
because everything is in order. It may not look in order to you,
but everything is in order. And the world, as we look at
it, it may not look orderly to you, but everything's in order,
because God rules. Isn't that right? And in this resurrection, there
is going to be a resurrection, but every man in his own order.
Number one, Christ the firstfruits. Well, you say there were others
who were raised from the dead before our Lord Jesus. The widow's
boy? The little girl? Lazarus? Yeah, but they were
raised to die again. That's not a real resurrection,
the kind of resurrection He's talking about. Our Lord Jesus,
He is Himself the first fruits. of them that sleep, because He
arose never to die again. Never to die again. His body,
when He came into this world, the Son of God, the Son of Man,
His body was made in such a way that it was likened to our bodies
in lots of ways. Of course, it had no sin. It
had no decay. No disease. But he became weary
and hungry and things like that. You know all about those things.
But his body was made in such a way he could die. And he had
to die because death is the penalty for our ungodliness. The soul
that sinneth shall die. Somebody's got to die for our
sins, but the death of you, the death of me, or anybody else
is not going to satisfy God's justice, because when He pours
out His wrath on us, it just sinks us to the lowest hell.
But another man came, the Lord of glory. He came into this world,
a real man. And when all the sins of all
of God's people met on Him, and all of the wrath of God fell
on Him, He bore it all because He's the God-man, this man, Christ
Jesus. And He died. He died. A real death. He didn't go into
a coma. He died. But then He came back in a body
They'll never die again. Never die again. You see, that's
why the mass is wrong. It's the killing of Jesus Christ
all over again. He was raised. Get rid of your
crucifixes. Get rid of those. Get rid of
your crosses. He's not on a cross. He's not
in the tomb. He's in glory. He ever liveth
to make intercession for His people. It's what the Scripture
says. He's the firstfruits. He was raised first. First. Order. There's order in God's
kingdom. Well then, there is going to
be a resurrection of His people. That's the next order of business. One day the Lord's coming back,
we're beginning to study the seven trumpets of judgment. The first six, warn of the seventh. When that last trumpet sounds,
that's to notify everybody. This is the end. The end. What's the order then? When that
last trumpet shall sound, Time shall be no more. What's the
order? Our Lord Jesus is coming back.
The souls of all those who've died are coming back with Him.
What's the next order? Those who are dead, those who
died in Christ Jesus are going to be raised. That's the next
order of business. And all of those dear folks,
many of our loved ones, and millions of people we've never met, but
we'll know them in heaven, I think we'll know all the family, don't
you? I think we'll know all of our brothers and sisters. But
they're going to be raised. This mortal's got to put on immortality. This corruption's got to put
on incorruption. Next order of business is Christ's
going to shout in the voice of the archangel, that archangel
being himself Christ Jesus. Trumpets shall sound and they're
coming out of the graves. That would be glorious. They're
coming out of the graves. Death can't keep them any longer. The soul is going to be joined
back to that body and it's going to be a body like unto our Lord's
body. They're never going to die again. No more tears, no more disease,
no more sickness, no more sin. You see, all the things that
we have trouble with, aches and pains and infirmities and afflictions
of the flesh. It's all due to sin. Get rid
of sin, get rid of the problem. That's the real problem. Let's
just not lop off branches here. Let's just get to the root of
the issue. The root of the issue is S-I-N, sin. That's the root. When our Lord Jesus raises us,
our bodies are free from sin. We're not going to age. What
are we going to be like? Somebody said, I think everybody
will be the age of the Lord Jesus when he died. I don't know. I
don't know. Best not go beyond the scripture.
That's what I figured out a long time ago. But I'll tell you this,
we'll all be perfect. No more feebleness and all of
that. would be raised. Then, what's next order? Those
who are alive and remain should be caught up together to meet
the Lord with them. And we're going to be changed
if we happen to be alive then. We'll be changed. You say, boy, this is going to
take a long time. It'll happen in a moment. Twinkling of an
eye. Just that fast. I don't see how
you can do that. I don't see how you can create
the world. There's a lot of things that
boggle my mind. But you forget who you're talking
about. You're talking about God. You're talking about God. He's
going to bring everything to an end just like that. And it's
all going to happen. Now, there's an order to it,
but it's going to happen quickly. And somebody else is going to
be raised. Those who've died without Christ.
They've got to be raised too. I believe in a general resurrection.
The dead have got to be raised. Those who are dead in sin. Their
souls are going to be brought back from the destruction that
they're experiencing now. Their bodies are going to be
raised. And you know what? They're going to have a miraculous
body themselves. Oh, it's not going to be a glorified
body, but they're going to have a body. that will be able to
be utterly separated from God with their souls forever and
never be destroyed, never age anymore. That's a miracle too. We forget about that. And God's going to put them all
away down in a deep pit where they'll have to suffer His wrath
forever and ever. Body and soul, because body and
soul, they rebelled against God. Body and soul, they were sinful. Before they're cast into everlasting
destruction, everlasting hell, they'll face God at the judgment.
And hear those frightening words, depart from me, I never knew
you. I sure hope none of y'all ever hear those words. You who
are watching on the internet, I don't want you to hear those
words. Oh, that God be gracious to you. Oh, that God be merciful
to you. Oh, that God would waken up you
and awaken those of us in this auditorium to the reality of
salvation in Jesus Christ, to the reality of our own wickedness
and ungodliness and our need of a great mediator. That's the order. Christ the
firstfruits, verse 23, act with they that are Christ at his coming.
And look at verse 24. Then, then cometh the end. A most interesting word, this
little three-letter word end, it means the termination or the
last in a grouping, the last in a series. This is the finish. This is a definite goal that
is finally reached. This is what everything is aiming
at. Then come at the end. Ever since God made the world,
everything has been, is being guided and directed to this end,
to this, this is the cessation of time. This is the destination
to which God's been guiding things. It's like this great big world,
in fact all of His universe, God is directing it, He's guiding
it to this point. The end. That's the goal. That's where everything's being
directed to. Well, what is the goal of all
things? What is the end of all things? Well, the end is 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.
What's the goal of all things? To what end are all things moving
and proceeding? Everything is moving toward this
goal, the day when the Lord Jesus will present the kingdom to His
Father. That's what everything's... everything's
moving toward that goal. It's not moving toward a goal
of doing something over in the Middle East. Everything is moving
toward this end, toward this goal, toward this... this is
the point. When the Lord Jesus, the Son
of God, presents the Kingdom to the Father. Well, what is
the Kingdom? Well, it's also expressed this
way. We could express it this way. It's when the shepherd will
present the sheep to the father. This is the goal. This is what
everything is being directed toward. This is the point. There is a point out there somewhere. Our God has ordained it. Our
God has appointed it. When all of those entrusted to
the Savior, all of those sheep given to this Great Shepherd,
the Good Shepherd, the Seeking Shepherd of the sheep, when all
of those sheep will be presented by Christ Jesus to the Father,
when He will say to the Father, of all those that Thou hast given
Me, I've lost none. I've lost none. In John chapter 6, this is the
Father's will, that of all which He hath given me, I should lose
not a one. Here they all are. Here's all
the sheep. I'll tell you what it means.
Here's that gold. It's that day when the bridegroom
will present his bride to the Father, having washed them in
His blood. presenting His bride a glorious
church, having neither spot nor wrinkle nor any such thing. That's
the goal. That's the end. That's the end
of a long, long series. This is the point. All of the things that are going
on in the world now, that have been going on ever since God's
creation, everything has always been pointing to this as the
goal. That glorious day when the bridegroom
who loved us and gave himself for us shall say to the Father, here's
the bride. dressed in my beauty, washed
in my blood, robed in my righteousness. Father, here they are. It's the day when our elder brother
will present his brethren to the Father. That's the goal. That's the end. And he will say,
Behold, I and the children that thou hast given me. It means
the king will deliver the kingdom up to the father. This is the
spiritual kingdom. It is the family of God. It is
every elect soul of all the ages. washed, glorious, spotless, no
blemish, there will be. What a day. What a day. That, my friend, is the end of
all things. Don't ever lose sight of that. I used to run track. Some of
y'all ran track. Some of you still run. I know
at least one in here, a couple in here still run track. I was a distance runner. Come
around that final bend. I keep my eye on the finish line. It isn't how you start. It's
how you wind up. It's how you finish. Keep your
eye on the finish line. I always had a good kick. I was
distance running. Some of you, I don't mean kicking
with your foot. I had an extra gear I could put
it into. And it'd be once in a while,
not very often, but once in a while, there'd be somebody in front
of me. And he'd kind of look over his shoulder like that.
You know what he did? Took his eye off the goal. And I'd go by him. It's like
you shoot basketball. But keep your eye on the goal.
Keep your eye on what you're aiming at. Let me tell you something,
everything's aiming toward this end. And we would do well to
keep our eyes on that end, that day when we'll be with Christ
Jesus. It puts everything else into perspective. all of the
lows of life, all the troubles of life. We've got to keep this
the end. What's the end going to be? I
know there's a lot involved in getting to the end, but look
to the end. The end is, we'll be with Christ
in glory. He's going to present me and
you and all of His children to the Father. That's the end. And I'm not even going to get
even still to the main point of the message. So this is the
end. And I'll pick up tonight and
try to talk to you about He shall reign. He shall reign.