You can find my text this morning
in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. Most of you are familiar with
this chapter in 1 Corinthians 15, if not by the chapter itself,
by some of the quotations from it, because it's a favorite text
for funerals. Preachers like to read from 1
Corinthians 15 at funerals because it speaks of the resurrection. And it does bring comfort. It
does. It gives comfort to believers who stand there by that coffin
and say goodbye to those they love. You know, we stand before that
thing. I've been there many times. And this is the last view we
have of that person in this world. The last view. Unless you're a believer. Unless
you're a believer. The believer has another view.
The resurrection. And that's what this chapter
is all about. And except by faith, I cannot
see beyond the grave. I can see in this life, and I
can see what's here, and I can experience what I feel. But faith,
it sees beyond the grave. It sees beyond this world. It
sees what natural men cannot see. And the things we suffer, Paul
said, they're just for a moment. My soul, I've never suffered
anything compared to what he suffered. And he said, he called
it a light affliction. Just a light affliction. And
he said it's just for a moment. Paul was here for a while. It
was more than just a moment, yet to him it wasn't. It was
just a moment in the light of eternity. And he said these things
that we suffer, over in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, He said, "...or just
for a moment, and worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal
weight of glory, while we look not on things which are seen." We're not going to understand
that while we look at things seen. You're going to have to
see beyond. You're going to have to see things not seen with these
eyes, with the eyes of faith. far more exceeding and eternal
weight of glory, while we look not on things which are seen,
but at the things which are not seen." Well, the things which
are seen are just temporary. But the things which are not
seen, they're eternal. They're eternal. And he said,
and we know this. Believers do. They know this. And it's a comfort to their souls.
that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved,
I have a building of God, not made with hands, eternal in the
heavens." These words offer sweet peace
to those who understand what they mean and know Him who gives
the promise. Did you know the Bible calls
natural death sleep? When He talks of believers, He
does. Believers just sleep. Not so man dies, but the believer,
his death is just sleep. The disciples said, Lazarus is
dead. Christ said, our friend Lazarus
sleepeth. He sleepeth. He comforted them. Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica
and he said in 1 Thessalonians 4 verse 13, he said, I would
not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not as others
which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus
died and rose again, even so them also that sleep in Jesus
will God bring with him. They're just asleep, John. We do have sorrow. It's okay
to have sorrow. It's understandable to weep when
a loved one passes. I wept at my dad's funeral. I
loved it. We lose a wife or a husband or
a child or a friend or a dear neighbor and we go down there
and we miss them. We miss them and it's okay to
miss them. But not to such an extent that we sorrow like those
who have no hope. You know, I hear at every funeral,
I was talking to a funeral director one day when Kathy's mother passed
and he said, this is the first funeral message I ever heard
in my life that they didn't preach the victim into heaven. He said,
I've never heard that. Never heard anything like that.
That's the most, Don Fortner preached a message and it was
the most listened to message that he's ever put on the internet. the funeral of an unbeliever.
We don't sorrow like people who have no hope. We do have sorrow,
and it's okay to miss these people. It's understandable to weep,
but not like those who have no hope. He that believeth on me,
Christ said, shall never die. Do we believe that? Never die. Oh, I'm going to shed this tent
I'm going to lay this body down in a box. But everything that
makes me, me, not going to die. Not going to die. He said, if
a man keep my saying, cherishes my promises, rests in my word,
believes on the Son of God, if a man keep my saying, he shall
never see death. That's what the Scripture says.
And our Lord said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth
my word, and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting
life, shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto
life. Now, I've only got two points
this morning to my message. Dead in Adam, alive in Christ. Alive in Christ. If you look
over here at 1 Corinthians chapter 15, it begins to say up here
in verse 19, if in this life only we have hope in Christ,
just in this life, if everything we find in this Bible that stirs
your heart has to do with this life, has to do with people in
this world, goes no farther than whatever your life is here, and
your relatives are here, and your friends are here. If in
this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most
miserable. If that's all the farther you
can see is the tomb, all you've got laying ahead for you is misery,
misery. But now is Christ risen, verse
20, from the dead and become the firstfruits of them that
slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection
from the dead. Now listen, as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be
made alive. In Adam all die, because through
Adam sin entered into the world. And death by sin, ain't that
what it says? And this death, according to
the Scriptures, is the judgment and curse of God upon every son
of Adam. In Romans 5, verse 12, he tells
us how sin entered into the world by one man, and that death passed
upon all men. And then throughout that chapter,
he begins to tell us exactly what he's talking about. He says
in verse 18, by the offense of one, of one, One representative
man, the beginning of man, Adam. By the offense of one, judgment. Judgment. Death is a judgment. By the offense of one, judgment
came upon all men to condemnation. Verse 19, as by one man's disobedience
many were made sinners. You didn't have a choice in the
matter, John. You were born in sin. That's
right. Every son of Adam is made a sinner. Right. He's got a nature of sin. He will sin. He will, of his
own volition, choose to sin. But he won't choose anything
else because he's a sinner. He was made a sinner by the offense
of one. That's what the Bible says. And according then to verses
17 and verse 21, this sin, it says in Romans chapter 5, reigns
unto death. Now we know very little about
something reigning in our country. We don't have a king. But in
the old countries, when they had kings, he reigned. He reigned. Back in the days
of Esther, when old Ahasuerus was the king, You entered into
his office without an invitation. And boy, you took your life in
your hands. If he didn't stretch out that
scepter to you, you were gone. I don't care who. Even the queen. I don't care who it was. You
didn't come in there without an invitation because he reigned. Sin reigns. It reigns. If it's left alone, unattended,
no intervention, no outside influence, no alteration. Sin will reign
over your thoughts. It'll reign over your motives.
It'll reign over your affections, your understanding, your reasoning,
and your will. It reigns. When I stand up here and tell
you that salvation is not of him that willeth, I'm not telling
you that you don't have a will. I'm telling you that sin reigns
over your will, and you will not. You will not. He said, you search the Scriptures
I gave them to you, because in them you think you have eternal
life, and they are they which testify of me. But you will not,
he said, come unto me. Why? Because sin reigns. It reigns. I know you that you have not
the love of God in you. Why is that? Because sin reigns
over your affections. You're not going to follow my
advice. He said over in Isaiah chapter 1, there's no reason
for me to afflict you anymore. You're just going to go on and
do evil. Why? Because sin reigns over the mind
and its enmity against God. It's not subject to the law of
God, neither indeed can be. Why? Because sin reigns over
it. That's why. Sin reigns with an irresistible
force. Its lusts and desires cannot
be avoided. It reigns in our lives, and it
reigns in our reasoning, and it reigns in our religion. It
reigns over all that we do. What a person does in this life
has no bearing on the sin that rules over him. I don't care
what it is. He can act religious, but sin
rules over it. It makes an abomination before
God. It's man that makes religion
ungodly. There's nothing wrong with religion,
true religion. When I talk about false religion
and this world's religion, I'm talking about man who's defiled
the religion. That's what I'm talking about.
I'm describing to you now things that you can't see, principalities,
powers, spiritual wickedness in high places. Turn with me
over to Ephesians chapter 2. What am I saying? I'm saying
all men are dead. As in Adam, all die. They dead. Graveyard dead. Now watch this. And you hath
he quickened who were dead. Ain't that what that says? In trespasses and sins. Wherein
in time past, that is before your quickening, You walked according
to the course of this world. What in the world is that? The
course of this world. It's the road on which we travel.
It's the way in which we walk. It's the course. And this way,
he says, is according, look at this, to the prince of the power
of the air. Ain't that what that says? We're
walking on this course. We're walking this way. We're
walking in this world, by this flesh,
in this scene. And it's according to the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in
the children of disobedience. Now let me tell you something
about that word spirit. Over in 1 Corinthians chapter
2, he said, what man knoweth the things of a man save the
spirit of the man, little s, spirit of the man which is in
him. In other words, you don't know
what's in me unless I tell you. Unless I tell you. The word for
spirit here in Ephesians chapter 2, 2 means this. It means troop. or assembly. And it's taken from
a word that means to appear beautiful. The word spirit has to do with
man's discernment. It has to do with man's devising
things. It has to do with his will. The spirit. And this spirit over
here in Ephesians chapter 2 by which we walked before God quickened
us. This spirit has to do with a
troop. It has to do with a multitude
of devisings. It has to do with a multitude
of influence. Satan steers men on the course
of this world. He is an evil influence. And
he appears as something beautiful. Always has. Isn't that what happened
in the garden? When the woman saw that the forbidden
tree was good for food, and pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be
desired to make one wise? Ain't that how he appeared? Ain't
that his story? Ain't that what he sells? She took the tree, ate of it,
and gave it to her husband. That's exactly, that's exactly
what Satan does in the religion of this world. He causes you to see these things
and they appear beautiful, they appear wonderful. And you swallow
them up. And when you swallow them, first
thing you do, go find somebody else and try to get him to swallow
it. That's how it works. Sin reigns
in men because of the ignorance of their depraved nature. Sin
reigns in men because Satan preys on that nature by using things
that he knows appeals to wicked men. Heathens, pride, self-will,
self-glory, the appetites of the flesh. The flesh craves to
be satisfied, but it's insatiable. You can't satisfy it. How much
you give it? The flesh wants to feel good.
What a fellow told me one time, he said, preacher, he said, I
just think if a man goes to church, he ought to come away feeling
better than he did when he went in. Not necessarily. Not necessarily. And the flesh wants what's forbidden.
The more a thing is forbidden, the more it's desired. All of
these things, even though they can have... To me, that's why
all of these things, we're seeing such a rise in forbidden things.
What am I talking about? I'm talking about incest, pedophilia,
same-sex marriages, forbidden things. Well, man, they're so
common in our day, they talk about them on TV and radio like
they're nothing. Like they're nothing. Where'd
all this come from? It come from religion. The same
principle. Same principle. appeals to the flesh. This death,
Paul says, this course we walk and the way we walk is an influence
of Satan and his ministers. And it leaves men and women in
the lust of the flesh. It doesn't do anything about
the flesh! It doesn't conquer the flesh!
It doesn't expose the flesh! It doesn't talk about the flesh!
It ignores it like it's not even there. They ignore the problem.
Sin's in you. Ain't that where the problem
was? Christ kept these Pharisees and come and said, well, now
wait a minute. We'd be not born of fornication. Sure you were. Sure you were. We don't do these things, don't
you? To look on a woman and lust after
her is to commit adultery in your heart. To be angry at your
brother without a cause is to be guilty of murder. Huh? We don't do these things. Sure
you do. And you do them every day. And you do them constantly,
continually. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. This death, Paul says, this course
we walk, this way we walk is the influence of Satan and his
ministers. And it leaves men and women in
the lust of their flesh. Can you see it here? Among whom
also, verse 3 of Ephesians 2, we all had our behavior and times
past in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the
flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath,
even as others. Paul was a preacher. Huh? But that old self-righteous religion
couldn't do nothing about this flesh. It ignored it. Ignored it. Acted like it wasn't
there. You can stand and you can talk
about your righteousness and talk about your hope before God
and talk about that little pitiful profession of faith you made
back when you was 12 years old. Because somebody patted you on
the back and said, now, honey, don't you want to be in heaven?
Yeah, I want to go to heaven. You don't want to go to hell,
do you? Who in the world wants to go to hell? Who wouldn't want
to go to heaven? But they ignored that flesh,
they ignored that sin. That's why you swallow up all
them ideas of salvation, because you don't know what it is to
be a sinner. It's called the mystery of iniquity
in the scriptures. It's the influence of satanic
religion to deceive the multitudes. And if it were possible, Christ
said, even the very least, be deceived, if it were possible.
2 Thessalonians chapter 2 said it's after the working of Satan
with all power and signs and lying wonders and with all deceivableness
of unrighteousness in them who perish. Why are they perishing?
Because they won't receive the love of the truth that they might
be saved. Why won't they receive it? Because they're sinners.
Sin reigns. It rains. Salvation, my friend,
is not having God to blot out all your sins and then leave
you to yourself. The problem is yourself. It's
yourself. It's like this big generator
and it just generates sin, just generates sin and it just flows
out of it. Any of you see the news down
there where that big sewer line broke down there in Shreveport?
They had on the news last night. I forget how many millions of
gallons of raw sewage was going to go into that lake down there
because they couldn't get this thing stopped. That's his heart. His heart just pumps out that
cesspool of iniquity. Out of the heart, he said, proceed
evil thoughts and adulteries and all of these things. They
come forth from within and they defile the man. It's not a matter
of sticking your finger in the dike. Not a matter of coming
down the aisle and making a decision. It's about God intervening in
this curse. It's about a resurrection. It's
about a resurrection. Salvation is for the sovereign
Lord of glory. being satisfied with the life
of Christ and His obedience and His death to raise Him from the
dead and put Him in a place where He can raise you from the dead. Send forth His Spirit. Baptize
His church all in one motion. Raise Him up. Justify Him. Seat Him with Him in heavenly
places. Now He's going to send forth
His Spirit and His gospel and power and He's going to raise
you He's going to quicken you, all His people. He's going to
quicken them, quicken them. Stop them in that course that
they're walking. Stop them in that way. Overthrow
that power by which they're forced to walk. It's for the God-man to break
this curse of sin. He seated him at his own right
hand in heavenly places to establish a new rule. He was always king. Always was. But he's a cleric. Old David. God came to David out there in
that pasture. They were going to anoint somebody
to be king and they didn't call him in. He wasn't even worth
considering. And he left him out there, and
he's out there. And all these men, all these valiant sons of
Jesse passed before the prophet. Samuel said, you got any more?
Because God didn't lay any of these men on my heart. He said,
I got one more. He said, well, go get him. Samuel
anointed David to be king. And he was king. He was king. But he didn't just march right
up there and sit down. A battle had to be fought. He was king all along. He was
king when God chose him to be king before the foundation of
the world. He was king when God come and anointed him. But he
was king when God seated him. And he ascended up them stairs
and sat down on the throne. He was king, uncontested king. He put down all rule and all
power. If you read through 1 Corinthians
15, you'll find everything that I'm saying. You'll find it right
there. That's Paul's arguments about this resurrection. Christ
must reign until He has put down all rule and all power, all principalities. He's going to put them down.
And shall have delivered up the kingdom to God. God raised up Christ from the
dead, seated us with Him in heavenly places. Paul said it was that
in the ages to come, when chosen sinners were enlightened to their
sins. When these chosen sinners, walking
the course of this world, walking according to the Prince of the
Power of the Air, when chosen sinners were made to see that
awful condition of the soul, then He'd make known unto them
the riches of the glory of His grace. For by grace are you saved
through faith. You see what he's saying? As
He calls the heavenly light to shine out of darkness and chaos,
so He commands the eternal light of glory to shine in our hearts
in the face of the resurrected Christ. He begins this chapter and He
says this, Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.
And He was buried and raised the third day according to the
Scriptures. We need to get in here and find
out what's according to the Scriptures, don't we? Quit speculating. Quit saying, well, I just think.
Throw that away. Get out this book. Open it up.
See what it says. According to the scriptures. I don't understand what he did
with our sins. I hear men talk about it like
they did. I don't think they do. I don't know what he did
with them. I don't know what he did with
them. But this much I know. When he
went to the cross, he had them on his back. And when he come
out of the tomb, they were gone. That's good enough for me. They're
gone. Gone. Put them away. Took our sins
unto himself and died before God a guilty sinner. But somewhere
between the cross and the resurrection, those sins were gone. Put them
away forever. Cashed them behind his back.
Scattered them as far as the east is from the west. They're
gone. You don't think Satan would bring one up if he could find
it? It ain't there. He said, I read to you in the
Sunday school lesson, he said, you're all going to leave me.
You're all going to depart and go your way. I'm going to be
left there alone. And he said, Satan comes and he's not going
to find anything in me. Not going to find anything in
me. But where's the believer at? He's in Christ. What's Satan
going to find in you? He's not going to find anything.
They're gone. They're gone. The hope of every
heir of grace is that when God raises him from the dead, he'll
be like Christ. My sins by substitution have
been blotted out by Christ, and I by faith stand before God,
justified and righteous. But my sin's still in this body.
That old man of sin, he's still here. He's still here. And nothing but a resurrection
can take it away. That's why believers rejoice. And look, Paul said, I rejoice
against that day. He said, it's my desire to depart.
The only reason I stay here, he said, I know it's needful
for you that I do. And God's purposed me to be here
and to preach to you. But he said, my desire is to
depart. Why would I want to hang around in this mess? All I do
all day long is repent of what I am and what I do and what I
say. I can't say it the way I want
to say it. I can't love the way I want to love. And that day
I will. I'll know, John. I won't be standing
here doing, I don't know what that means. I'll know as I've
known. I see the glory of God in a grasshopper
in that day. My sin's still in this body and
nothing but His resurrection can take it away. And the sleep
in the grave or awake in faith that is coming, we're going to
be raised either way. Raised up to meet Him in the
air. Salvation is a resurrection from the dead. Raised in this
world by regeneration and faith in God. Christ in you, the hope
of glory. And we put on the new man which
is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created
him. And in Him there is neither Jew nor Greek, circumcision or
uncircumcision, barbarian, scythian, bond or free, but Christ is all. Oh, that swallowed up. That's
what happened to Jacob. He got swallowed up. Swallowed
up. As the elect of God, we put on
bonds of mercies and kindness and humbleness of mind and meekness
and long-suffering. We put off concerning the old
ways and the old man which is corrupt according to deceitful
lusts. And we're renewed in the spirit
of one man. Huh? The mind of Christ. And we put on the new man which
after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Sin is a rule. It's a nature. It's a way that
permeates our nature and being. And it pollutes everything we
say and do. It's not so much what a man does, it's why. and who it is that's doing it.
It's not wrong to give to the poor, but if you give to the
poor to find favor with God, then it's wrong. You see what
I'm saying? In Adam, all die. Every son,
every daughter, every neighbor, every friend. But the good news
is that God, by way of a sovereign election of grace, has determined
to save some from that death. In Christ shall all be made alive. Every man in him. Every man in
him. Out of this irresistible, unreversible
curse, God has determined to take a bride for his beloved
son. And he's predestinated her adoption. He's decreed the means to save
her and call her and justify her and dress her in his own
garments and to make her willy. She's going to be willing. Brethren,
I don't preach that God comes down with a preacher and grabs
you by the arm and twists it up around the back until there's
so much pain you got to agree with Him. God makes you willing. How does He do that? He tells
you the truth and opens your eyes to see it. And when He does,
you'll be willing. He raised her up with him, seated
her with him on the throne of his glory. Oh, how she raised,
gave to Esther. She came in and he reached out
that scepter to her. And he said to her this, you
can read about it over in the book of Esther. But he said this
to his queen. You can go, this is my will in
this matter. It's my will. And he took his
ring. He said, here's my signet. Now
you go tell those Jews that you love exactly what you want to
tell them. Exactly what you told me. You
go tell them. And it says, and the decree of the king could
not be reversed. He gave her power to tell all
Israel. Huh? And Christ shall all be made
alive like the blessed light of the sun that melts the frozen
ground of the night. So Christ preached, melts that
cold heart. Chosen sinners. There's a resurrection
of the true man when faith is established in the heart. And
God calls him forth because he's his. He's his. But how do I know if I'm called? Well, we wrestled with that,
don't we? How do I know I'm called? All those affectionately called
by the Holy Spirit of God are convinced of sin. I know that. I know that thought. Because He said, I'm going to
send my Spirit. And when He comes, when He comes, He's going to
convince you of sin. I'm saved, but I don't know anything
about what you're talking about. You've never been convinced of
sin. In Adam all die. That's what
God says. What do you say? I'm not twisting that around.
I'm quoting that exactly how it's written. In Adam all die. Flesh and blood, he said, cannot
inherit the kingdom of God. That's what God said. What do
you say? Except you be born of water and
of the Spirit, you cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That's
what He said. What do you say? God says there's none righteous,
none good, none that understandeth, and none that seeketh after God.
What do you say? Yeah, but man's got a free will.
Ain't what God said. That's what you said. You can have them all die. Paul
said, knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. What's
he talking about? Have you ever considered that? What's he talking about? Terror.
That terror that every God-called sinner knows is that God could
and would be just if He damned a whole lot. That's the terror. That's the terror. That's the
terror of that revelation of revealed sin. When you see it,
you'll see that God's just if He sends you to hell. That's
terror. You're still walking around,
well, I can choose Jesus if I want to. There ain't no terror in
that. There's nothing convincing in
that. Wait till He convinces you of sin, if He ever does.
You'll know something about terror. There's nothing I can do. I'm
being swept away. The current's too strong. The
influence is too strong. I can't get myself out of this
mess. No, you can't. But he can. He can. And when he does, your
only hope will be that he can. He can. Like that old nasty,
stinking, pus-covered leper. forbidden to even be around men,
let alone to come to Christ. And here he came and threw himself
prostrate down at his feet and worshiped him in his leprosy.
And he said, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. Clean. The disciples couldn't even look
at him. I guarantee every one of them was doing that. Christ
said, I will. He convinces me of sin and He
convinces me of righteousness. I don't have any other righteousness.
It's His. It's His. I'll tell you this. Every now
and then we'll get to thinking about something. And I'm not
saying these things are wrong. I'm just saying how we do them
is wrong. But we go down to the hospital and we visit somebody.
Like Amos. Go down there and visit Amos. Then I come home
and get feeling good because I went down and visited Amos.
That's our righteousness. That's what it's about. His righteousness is pure. Pure. I want to do things. I want to
visit. I want to love. I want to cherish. I want to
be helpful, but not as a hope before God, just because I love
Him. Christ has to take that. I know
this. If I'm called of God, He's going
to convince me of judgment, satisfied justice, that His blood is sufficient. I don't know how to press that
to you except to say that when you're young, it don't mean much. But I tell you, the closer to
that grave you get, the more serious that thing becomes. I'm
going to have to stand before God. It's appointed unto man
once to die, and after that, that's not the end of it. After
that, the judgment. What's my hope? That that sin,
that God has been satisfied from my sin, what's my hope? The blood of Christ. That's the
only thing that can take that guilt off your conscience. The
blood of Christ. What can wash away my sin? Nothing
but the blood of Jesus. That's it. May God be pleased
to give you that hope. See yourself helpless, hopeless,
waiting on Him and cast yourself down at His feet. That's all
we can do is fall down. Did you know that? We can't climb,
but we can fall down. fall down to His feet and plead
mercy.