And I was thinking there as Brother
Al was speaking or he read those Scriptures
concerning the Lord in front of the Pharisees as they questioned him and brought to mind the fact
that unless the Lord opens a man's eyes and heart to receive who
he is, Even though He speak His name to them face to face, they
cannot know who He is. And you know, should it be any
wonder that we would preach or declare the truth of God and
men not believe who He is, it is only by the revelation of
God, the mercy and kindness of the Lord, to open a man's eyes
to see who He is. And it was not given to those
Pharisees to know and see that. And by the grace of God, we should
rejoice each day as we consider that we have been given the privilege
to know who He is and to be shown and taught of His
glory, because really all of the things that we know and understand
in the Scripture, if we understand them right, it is that He might
have glory. And of course, it is what we
have been talking about, what Paul has been speaking about
here in I Corinthians chapter 15, is no greater testament to
the glory of God than this very thing. The Lord Jesus said that
the Father has given to the Son to have life in Himself. Now, He's the only one who has
life in Himself because, just as Brother Al pointed out, He
is God. He is the source of life. In
Him was life, and life was the light of men. He is the Way,
the Truth, and the Life. And so He being God in the flesh,
He had life in himself. And he said, I can lay it down
and I can take it up again. Now that is an amazing thing. You know, I don't understand
that. I don't comprehend it. You know, when Isaac Watts wrote some hymns
in that he speaks about the fact that God died. Now, how can that be? I can't explain that, and nobody
else can either. But He had life in Himself. See,
death's nothing to God. It's nothing. He is life. And he has life in
his hands, and he can lay it down, he can take it up again,
he can do as he pleases. Now, if he can do those things,
then, dear brethren, there is hope in the resurrection. then
we have no hope. And that's exactly what Paul's
saying here. If there's no resurrection of
the dead, then Christ didn't rise from the dead because he
said the purpose of his rising from the dead was that he might
be the firstfruits of his people. And that's what he's speaking
about here. And he says, let's see, we kind
of got down through about verse forty last week, speaking about
all flesh is not the same flesh. There is one kind of flesh of
men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, another of
birds. And so anybody that tells you
that we all came from the same thing, you can tell them they
are a bold-faced liar, because the Scripture says that all flesh
is not the same flesh. And so there's no way that this
can be true and the concept of everything evolving from one
little organism coming into being what it is. It couldn't be that
way because all flesh is not the same. God made the flesh
of birds and He made the flesh of animals of all types and He
made the flesh of man according as it had pleased Him. There
are also celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial. That is,
there are heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies. The
glory of the celestial is one, the glory of the terrestrial
is another. We do not have the glory of the
stars, but the stars do not have the glory of the man. Just like the angels, they have
heavenly bodies and they are celestial creatures and they
have a glory that we can't attain unto. But by the same token,
we have a glory that they can't attain unto and they would desire
to look into the things that have been shown to us and to
understand and grasp these things. There is one glory of the sun,
another glory of the moon, another glory of the stars, for one star
differeth from another star in glory." Now, the Lord does not
make all things in His creation alike, but He makes all things
individually. Every grain of sand on the face
of the earth is different from another grain of sand. Every
man's fingerprints is a little bit different from somebody else's.
That's an amazing thing. How can you look at that and
not see the glory of God? In that, to design all things
according to the purpose that He wanted it to be. All men don't
have the same amount of hair on their head. All men don't
have the same number of teeth in their mouth. You know, all
of these things are different. And it's because God ordered
it to be so. Not because it just happened
that way, but because it pleased Him to make one star differ from
another in glory. So also is the resurrection of
the dead. It is sown in corruption and
it is raised in incorruption. That is, the resurrection of
man is sown in corruption because the seed, as he spoke of there
a moment ago, of how the body comes forth, as some said, well,
how can this be that a body could come up out of the ground? He
said, well, because you do not understand the nature and power
of God, who it's as planting a seed into the ground and that
seed has to go into the ground as a dead inanimate object in
order for it to come forth. Now, you know, you look at a
seed and for all practical purposes it's dead. It's got to be dead
because if it's not dead it'll rot. And so it's dead but yet
God, who is rich in mercy, He is able to cause that seed to
sprout. Now, they claim, or I have read
this somewhere, that they found seeds that had been in the pyramids
where they had been buried, and those seeds, when they exposed
them to moisture, they sprouted. Now how is that? How could that
be? I mean, if God can do that with
a seed, which is just a little old piddling thing. Now, of course,
a lot of people tell you, oh, well, that's just the nature
of the seed. Well, listen. No, it's not just
the nature of the seed because you can have a bag of seed and
you can plant them and I guarantee you all of them won't come up.
Why is that? Because all of them are not appointed
to come up. Because every seed in a bag of
corn is ordained by God, and some of them are ordained to
just stay dead, and some of them are ordained to come to life,
because that is just the purpose of God in all things. And so
it is that it must be sown in corruption, that is, it must
be put in the ground as a corruptible body, because if it was incorruptible,
it could not stay in the ground, as we see with the Lord Jesus
Christ. But though it is sown in that
corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is
raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is
raised in power. Now, every man, when he goes
to his grave, he goes there with dishonor in his life somewhere. There is not a man that has ever
lived in the earth that has not done dishonorable things. And
if a man knows what he is by nature, he would confess that
he is totally dishonorable. You know, he has been overruled.
His honor has been overruled with dishonor. And it is sown
in dishonor, but it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. But it is raised in power. When
men go down to their death, they go there in weakness. I mean
every man breathes his last breath because his body cannot sustain
itself. Every one. And that's exactly
the way of the flesh. It will happen that way. It's
going to be sown in weakness, but it's going to be raised in
power. Not the power of the corruption, not the power of the flesh, not
the power of that which was put in the ground, but the power
of Him who made it in the first place. And it is sown a natural
body. It is raised a spiritual body. Now, the Lord made man to be
men. He didn't make men to be angels. He didn't make men to be dogs.
He didn't make men to be cows. He made men to be men. And women
to be women. I mean, that's just what He made.
Now we see, of course, in our society and the world now that
there's some question about that. But I mean the Lord made what
He made. He made it for His own purpose and unto the end that
He would have it to be. And so it is sown a natural body
raised a spiritual body. Now, that does not mean that
God made men to be spirits. You see, man's concept of existence
is what he can see. God didn't necessarily make men
to be what we can see. Now when we look at this body
of flesh, which is a body of dishonor, it's a body of corruption, it's a body of weakness. When
we look at that, we think, well, here I am. But one day, we'll be put in
the ground, and this is what, if somebody comes along and looks,
they're going to see that same hand I'm looking at right now.
But I guarantee you one thing, I'm not that hand. You see, God
made us, He made man a living soul. Now, a lot of people say,
well, man has a soul. Well, you don't find that in
the Scripture. Man is a soul. A man is a soul
that has a body, not a body that has a soul. Now, there's a big
difference if you think about that a little bit. You see, God
made man. He formed a body and He breathed
life into it. Now, if he had made that body
and he hadn't given it life, what would it have been? A pile
of clay. I mean, it would have just laid
there. It wouldn't have been anything.
So the life that comes into the people of God is the life which
is of Christ, even as the natural body was given life in a natural
way. The Lord created the world and
He created a natural existence for man to live in. And these
bodies, corruptible, how did the bodies get to be corruptible? God made them that way. Now see,
some people, they kind of get thinking, well, you know, God
made this body and it wasn't corruptible to start with, but
man corrupted it. Well, let me tell you something.
Man couldn't have corrupted something God made perfect, holy, without
corruption any more than it can make that which is corruptible
to be incorruptible. We're corruptible. God made us
corruptible. Otherwise, Adam would have never
sinned. If he was incorruptible, would
he? The Lord Jesus Christ was incorruptible. He was without sin. But men were
not made incorruptible. We were made incorruptible bodies
for the Lord to demonstrate the glory of His grace. to teach
us many things. I mean, we couldn't go through
all the different things the Lord would teach by the creation
that He made. But we know that whatever He
made, He looked at it and He said it's good. Did He not? Even that man that He made in
a corruptible body that He told him, didn't He? He said, now
one day, now He didn't say it in His Word, but He did actually
say this. He said, in the day that thou
eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." Now some people come along
and try to change that, and they say, now Adam, if you eat this,
you're going to die. The Lord never said, if you eat
that, you're going to die. He said, Adam, in the day that
you eat it, you're going to die. God didn't put men here on probation. He put men here to demonstrate
their corruption. that He might demonstrate the
glory of incorruption, that He might show His glory in the manifestation
of His grace and mercy to men in the salvation of sinners. Now, dear brethren, when you
read the Scriptures, you just see that over and over again.
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. He didn't come
into the world on second thought. But He came into the world to
save those whom He loved from before the foundation of the
world. When did He choose His people? Or where did He choose His people?
He chose them in Christ. He didn't choose them in corruption. He chose them before they were
ever corrupted, in Christ. Now, did we have a beginning
until we were made? Of course not, but in the sense,
in the purpose of God, in the way in which God would order
all things to occur, we were in Christ when we were created. And we are chosen in Christ from
before the foundation of the world according to what the Scripture
says. Now, all of this ties in together here. Because you see,
that which is raised incorruptible is first corruptible according
to the purpose of God. This wasn't a stopgap thing. God didn't come along and say,
well, now I'm going to have to do something different. No, it
was His purpose from the beginning for us to be here right today
and be speaking about the glories of redemption. That was God's
purpose from the beginning. What a glorious thing it is there,
brethren. Would you want it to have been some other way? Could you have come up with a
better plan? I mean, I hear all these people
talking about all this stuff, and I get to thinking, well,
I guess they figured they knew better than God did. I mean,
God said this is the way it's going to be and this is the way
He designed it, and He has demonstrated the glory of His Son and the
grace and mercy in the salvation of sinners. See, a lot of times
people think salvation is for men. Now, men do benefit from it,
but the glory of salvation is unto the glory of God. And those
that see the salvation of men is not just men. See, God created
the heavens and the earth. He created all creatures, known
and unknown. See, we think about creatures,
we think about those that we see every day. I saw a rabbit
run across the road yesterday, and that was one of God's creatures,
but that wasn't the only creature. See, there's a lot of creatures
that God made that I can't see. You see, there are things that
are going on now that you cannot see by creatures that God made. There is spiritual wickedness
in high places and there are powers and forces that are at
work according to the creation of God, because how else could
they be? Now you see a lot of people think,
and of course the Star Wars phenomena that swept over people's minds,
it reiterates really the basic concept that most people have
that there is a force for good and a force for evil. And these
forces are locked together, you know, and they're in this titanic
struggle and we don't know who's going to triumph in the end,
but we sure hope it's the force of good. Well, let me tell you,
the force of evil can't exist without the force of good. Because
the devil, who's the father of lies, he's God's devil. He created
him just like he created every other creature. He created Him
for a purpose and He created Him to accomplish exactly what
He set out to do. And He would demonstrate to all
of His creation, dear brethren. You see, the demonstration of
the salvation of God's people is a demonstration to the whole
creation, not just to men, what the salvation of God is. Oh, the angels rejoice when they
see a sinner. Repent. Because they see a thing
that they can't comprehend. See, they never saw any of that. None of the angels that were
cast out of heaven repented. Why? Because they weren't given
repentance. But you see, it's a glorious thing that the angels
can't even imagine. They can't even begin to think
of it, how it could be. That those who rebelled against
God have been granted repentance unto salvation. That Jesus Christ
has come into the world and laid down His life to die that they
might have eternal life. And they would desire to look
into these things, but they can't get it. But it's a glorious thing. You see, the redemption of God's
people is a glorious thing, not simply to the men, but to the
angels, to the whole creation as they view this unfolding of
this thing. What can it be? Oh, what? Dear brethren, what a joy and
a glory it is to be given to be a participant in this, to
be one upon whom the Lord has bestowed such mercy and kindness
that we might be the objects of His love. I mean, that's a
glorious thing. How could it have been? See,
a lot of men entertain this notion that they could just somehow
come along and cause God to love them. Dear brethren, you can't
cause God to love you. You can't cause God to do anything. Why? Because just like Brother
Al brought out, he's the first cause of all things. He said,
I am that I am. His will and His way shall be
done. And we're just blessed. blessed to
be made the recipients of His mercy. I mean, what can we boast
in? I mean, what can we say to another
man? Well, I just, brother, I tell
you what, you need to get yourself straightened out. I just straightened
myself out and now I'm walking with the Lord. How foolish! How foolish! Apart from the grace and mercy
of God, we'd all just go contrary to His way and wind up destroyed. Because that's the way of corruption,
is it not? Have you ever known of anything
corrupted? Have you ever had a sack of apples
and one of them started to rot? And you looked in there one day
and you saw one of them had a spot on it and you said, you know,
I need to take that apple out of that bag, but you didn't do
it. And then tomorrow when you looked in there, what happened? There's two or three more that's
in the same shape. Because corruption begets corruption. You don't ever take a rotten
apple or a rotten egg. When we were kids, buddy, we
loved to find a rotten egg. You know why? I don't know, because
that's one of the stinkiest things you could ever think. Well, we'd
take that thing and bust it, and then we'd, oh, you know how
terrible it was? Or eating the green persimmon,
you know, that was a big deal, too. We thought that was really
something. Now, if you ever ate one, you know it's not a pleasant
thing, but yet there was just something like a magnet that
you just wanted to do that, you know? And you knew it was going
to be bad, but you just went ahead and did it anyway. I kind
of got lost in the train of thought there. Oh, I was talking about
the corruption, you know. You can take a rotten egg and
you can treat it with the tenderest of care. You can put it through
all sorts of treatments and you can just do
the best you can. You can give it psychological
counseling. You can do everything that you can possibly do to it. And when you crack it open, it's
still going to be a rotten egg, isn't it? Because corruption
cannot beget incorruption. Now, the only thing that can
beget incorruption is incorruption. And it's an amazing thing that
incorruption, that which is not corruptible, can cause that which
is corruptible to be made incorruptible. And that is what the resurrection
is about. You see, it's taken that which
is sown a natural body, but it is raised a spiritual body. That
is, it is raised a body. See, this body was fitted for
earth. Do you know of anything in the earth that doesn't decay?
I mean, Mount Rushmore, it's a big monument, you know, chiseled
out of granite up there on, where is it, North Dakota, South Dakota,
somewhere up in South Dakota, somewhere up there. Now, that
thing's been there for a hundred years, I guess. Well, the mountain's
been there longer than that, but I mean the sculpture. But you know what? That thing
started to deteriorate from the very first day that they started
working on it. And you give it enough time,
and I guarantee you that one day you can ride by Mount Rushmore
and you'll never know there was ever a sculpture there because
everything in this earth is passing away. There's nothing here that's
not passing away. I mean, you know, we got all
of these people that's also concerned about climate change. They changed
it from global warming to climate change, and now it's just like,
I mean, because the President got out of the Paris Agreement,
they're now, oh, well, we just, I mean, we're done for. I mean,
we're going downhill. I mean, the Earth's going to
probably collapse tomorrow. How foolish. You know, obviously we're not
against being good stewards of things God gave us and being
wise, you know, and not foolish in the things that we do. But,
dear brethren, this world is not meant to last. It is temporary,
just like our stay upon it is temporary. But what is sown in
the natural body is raised in the spiritual body. There is
a natural body and there is a spiritual body. So there is a body that's
fitted for the earth and there is a body which is fitted for
heaven. And when we speak of heaven, I'm not sure what heaven
is now. Well, I know what heaven is. Heaven is to be in the presence
of the Lord Jesus Christ, but now I don't know what heaven
is. When I was a kid, I used to kind
of picture, I always pictured it as there was always a bunch
of clouds around, you know, and people were I guess walking around
and sitting on the clouds and whatnot and all like that. I
mean, people have these visions in their mind of what, when they
talk about, I'm going to heaven. Well, you know, maybe you are,
maybe you aren't. I don't know. Everybody's not
going according to what Scripture says. Now, but there is a body
which is fitted for heaven. And heaven, is wherever the Lord
Jesus Christ is. That's where heaven is. And so
this body that's raised is going to be a body that is fitted for
that use. There is a spiritual body, and
so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul,
the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Now we're going... Well, we've got a few more minutes
here. It says, So it is written, The first Adam was made a living
soul. Now, the first man Adam was made
a living soul. Now, this is an important concept
that we have here, an understanding that Adam is a representative
of the human race. He is the first Adam. Now, he was made a living soul. That is, he didn't do anything,
did he? He was made a living soul. Now, that is, he came into being
because the Lord made him. Now, he wasn't made a living
body. He was made a living soul, but he was given a body. He was
made a living soul. And the last Adam, now who's
the last Adam? the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the
second Adam, as the Scripture says. He's the one who came in
a secondary fashion. That is, He came to demonstrate
the contrast between that which was of the earth and that which
was of heaven. Now it says He was made, and
actually the word was made is in italics. It's just given there
so that we might have a kind of an understanding of the continuity
of the passage. But actually what the Scripture
says there is, the first man Adam was made a living soul,
the last Adam a quickening spirit. Because he wasn't made in the
sense that because he was given life, that is he gave himself
life, to have life in Himself. That's why the Lord Jesus Christ
came into the world as a quickening spirit. He came into the world
as a man, but He came into the world with the Spirit. It wasn't
added to Him. See, it wasn't superimposed. He is life, and He came in that
fashion. So the first man Adam was made
a living soul, the last Adam a quickening spirit. Howbeit
that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural. Now
that's in the Lord's purpose, is it not? According to the making
of man, to make man in a natural state. But that's not His ultimate
purpose for man. And thus He made man a living
soul. He didn't make man a living body. He gave man a living body. But He made man a living soul.
And so it is the spiritual body that we are given, just like
we were given a natural body, in the resurrection we are going
to be given a spiritual body. Now what does that mean? I don't know exactly. And anybody
that tells you they do is not telling you the truth. Now, I
believe this is a real body. It's just as real a body as this
body right here. I mean, when the Lord Jesus Christ
came back and He walked among His disciples, what was He in? He was in a real body, was He
not? Scripture says that He's coming
back in the same body. That was a real body, but it
was a glorified body. It was a body that was raised
from the dead. A glorious thing. And so it is, dear brethren,
that we shall be raised. And it will be us. It won't be
somebody else. Job said, he said, I shall see
Him. Not another, but me. For in my
flesh shall I see God." Now what he meant was in that existence
that he is in, he would be raised from the dead to behold the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so it is, dear brethren,
that the grave cannot hold us who are quickened by the Spirit
of God, raised incorruptible, Because that which is incorruptible
cannot be held by corruption. You can't do it. May the Lord
give us grace to rejoice in these things, even though they are
mysterious things and we don't have all the answers to them.
I mean, people talk about heaven and hell and all of that stuff.
Nobody knows what happens the moment you die. I mean, who knows
that? I don't know that. I mean, I
know this, to be absent from the body, from this old flesh,
is to be present with the Lord. I mean, the Scripture plainly
says that. Now, that's good enough for me. I don't have to understand
it anymore than I have to understand all the workings of a radio when
I turn it on. You know, it is so. And it's
a time for rejoicing for the people of God.