in Acts chapter 24, we will take
up our message for today. I will say also with regards
to the traditional approach to this
thing called the resurrection, please don't fool yourself. The
resurrection is not a message that is unique to be spoken about
on Sunday once a year. And it's not merely a doctrine
to keep in your back pocket for some time down the line. The
resurrection is a person, that's Jesus. I am the resurrection. And the resurrection is the foundation
and the life of every true child of God. Do you know you live
out of the resurrection? It's interesting too, because
we will sort of classify our children's songs as little you
know, niceties. And yet they have more theology
in the children's song than most of our grown-up Christian songs
today. Our grown-up Christian songs are so stingy with the
gospel, it's not even funny. But when the children say, I
know that he lives, because he lives within my heart, and I
know that I can face tomorrow, that's the whole confidence of
the child of God. because of the resurrection of
Jesus Christ. And I want to hopefully impress upon your heart again
today the reality of that truth as we look at the 24th chapter
of the book of Acts. And may God help you to disengage
the notion that the resurrection doesn't have anything to do with
you and me and all the time. May he help you to understand
how important it is for us to know the implications and the
benefits and the consequences of the resurrection 24 hours
a day, every day in our life. If you were reading along with
our elder, as he went through Acts chapter 24, you would have
noted a man called the apostle Paul. Did you guys know him?
The apostle Paul found himself in a very precarious situation.
He was Standing before Felix the governor of Rome on this
occasion. He is in a courtroom scenario
And so I want us to put our feet in the Apostles feet because
the Apostle stands that stands as a great exemplar for all of
us What kind of heart? What kind of persuasion must
there be for a man to stand before courtroom after courtroom after
courtroom after courtroom testifying to the risen Lord? What kind
of heart must a man or a woman have who is willing to undergo
the threat of imprisonment and punishment and death for the
resurrection? It has to be a heart that has
itself experienced the power of the resurrection. The apostle
Paul is finding himself on this day, having to defend himself
for the third time around this issue of the resurrection. He's on his third journey, missionary
journey, and God's about to now give him a beeline all the way
to the Praetorium in Rome. He's about to meet Caesar. He's
been preaching now for about 25 years, the glorious gospel
of God's sovereign grace. The message that Paul preached
is the message that we preach and that's Christ in him crucified
That's all Paul knew and the reason for which Paul got into
trouble every time he got into trouble Was because he preached
Christ I'm gonna help you to see that today. He wasn't even
in trouble today for preaching the resurrection He was in trouble
today for preaching the resurrection through Christ He was always
getting in trouble for that one reason. And he stands for us
as a glaring, glaring and wonderful testimony of a man committed
to the Savior and committed to the gospel of God's grace. And
there are a number of things I want you to see in our outline.
First of all, the context again is this man is standing before
the Governor Felix. And if you have your outline,
you'll see it. He's standing before the Governor Felix. And
if you notice, there was a man named Tertullus. Tertullus was
a eloquent orator. The Jews had hired him to speak
to Felix and to persuade Felix that Paul was a guilty criminal. You guys remember the reading
of that. He used all those lofty phrases and lofty words. You
see it over in chapter 24, verse three and four. We accepted always
in all places, most noble Felix. with all thanksgiving, notwithstanding
that I would be further tedious unto thee, I pray thee that thou
wouldest hear us of thy clemency for a few words." Isn't that
nice? Isn't that nice? The Bible tells
us to watch out for the flatterer. The Bible tells us to be careful
about the eloquent orator. The Bible tells us to watch out
for that man who uses words to manipulate and to coerce and
to deceive. And yet that's the very person
that the leaders of the church are using now to try to persuade
the governor that Paul is guilty. Now, when you got to hire an
eloquent orator, you've already lost your case. You've already
lost your case. It's interesting because as Felix
is speaking to the governor, Not Felix, but Tertullus is speaking
to the governor. He's recalling events of which
he had no personal experience. He's talking to the governor
about things of which he was not even there. As I'm listening
to the reading and I'm thinking about it, Tertullus is a false
witness. He's a con man. And he uses the
language we, in the first person plural, like we were there. He
wasn't there. And as he rendered his argument,
you could just see his argument fading in the air. And as our
elder marked over in chapter 24 and verse nine, it says, and
the Jews also assented, saying that these things were so. And
what he did, he says, and if you don't believe me, ask these.
They said it happened. What I'm getting at is this,
the Apostle Paul has acquired over a 25 year ministry period,
a lot of enemies of the gospel. And on this occasion, the enemies
have gathered together to bring up false witnesses against him
as they did against our Lord Jesus Christ. You see, they had
to gather false witnesses against Jesus. Because in Jesus' ministry,
He never did anything wrong. He never said anything wrong.
He never behaved outside of the will of God. He said in John
chapter 8, Is there anyone among you that can convince me of sin?
Now, you and I are sinners, but Jesus never sinned. But you can
raise up false witnesses against somebody that's telling the truth.
You know that, right? And yet on this occasion, what's remarkable,
and I want you to see this as we make our way into the text,
that God begins to move in the mind of Tertullus. this eloquent
orator, this con man, and break down his persuasion on such a
level that he now is deferring to the Jews who hired him to
help buoy up his argument. And they don't even ultimately
defend their point. To now, we find ourselves having
to listen to the Apostle Paul himself. See, Paul is in the
courtroom, and Paul is standing before his alleged accusers,
and he's listening to this. Now, you've got to remember now,
Paul himself was a lawyer, wasn't he? Paul himself was a Pharisee. So I'm sitting in Paul's shoes,
and I'm thinking, man, this is amazing. Here they are, failing
to prove their point. Not only failing to prove their
point, they're giving me a wide open door to tell the truth.
That's the work of the spirit of God. If you guys remember
what Jesus told his disciples, as you go forth to preach the
gospel, don't meditate on what you're going to say. I'll give
you a mouth and I'll give you a wisdom to say precisely what
I need you to say. And when Jesus says, lo, I'm
with you always to the end of the world, I'll be with you.
I'll protect you. I'll guide you. This is what's
happening right now in the midst of this particular discourse,
because the apostle Paul now will open up for himself his
argument as to why he's standing here this day. The fact of the
matter is, as he opens up in his text, he says to Felix right
away, everything that these people are talking about is wrong. I
was never in the temple creating havoc. I was never in the temple
creating a tomo. I wasn't there in an unclean
state. There were three major things
that Tertullus said. First of all, Tertullus said
that Paul was a troublemaker. Now, Paul wasn't a troublemaker.
He just preached the gospel. Secondly, he was in the temple
in an unclean state. you go back to the original account
in chapter 23 Paul had been purified and he was with Jewish brethren
who were purified this is a bold-faced lie and in the third one that
they were saying to him is that he had brought Gentiles into
the temple and as a consequence this disturbed up the strife
and the contention there with all three of these charges were
false All three of these charges were false. And the apostle Paul
now is going to stand and speak for himself on this regard. We are at point number one. Not
true. Verses 11 through 13. Listen
to it. This is Paul speaking. But because
thou mayest understand, speaking to Felix, that there are yet
but 12 days since I went up to Jerusalem for to worship. And
they neither found me in the temple disputing with any man,
neither raising up the people, neither in the synagogue nor
in the city. Neither can they prove the things
whereof they now accuse me." Do you see that? He plainly said
they can't prove it. They can't prove it. Now I want
you to mark what he does as we go into what is so very, very
vital and so very, very important in our text. He says over in
verse 14, but this I confess. I'm gonna admit to this he says
I confess unto you most noble Felix but this I confess unto
you that after the way which they call heresy so worship I
the God of my father's do you see that Now let me talk to you
a little bit about heresy, because Paul is admitting right now,
he's admitting that they are charging him with heresy. Do
you know what heresy is? Heresy is when one group of people
who hold a body of doctrinal truth accuse you of having formally
believed or embraced that body of truth and departed from that
body of truth. It doesn't matter what group
it is. It could be the Masons. It could be any group. It could
be the Elks Club. It could be the Catholics. It
could be the Jews. It could be the Christians. Do you know Catholicism
calls the evangelical church heretics? Do you know that? Just
tell the truth. And the evangelical church called
the Catholics heretics. Did you know that? So on the
part of the Catholics, evangelicals are called heretics. On the part
of evangelicals, Catholics are called heretics because they
both believe they have departed from the truth of the gospel.
Am I making some sense? And why I say that is this. Child
of God, our person considering eternal things. It doesn't matter
what a man calls you or says of you. All that matters is whether
or not you know and believe and obey the truth. Heresy is merely
somebody's opposition to what you believe. Are you hearing
me? And so therefore, it was right. Their charge against Paul
was right. He was a heretic. because he
believed in what they call that sect of the Nazarenes, Jesus
Christ. The message of the gospel that
Jesus preached was salvation is found in Christ alone. Salvation is found in the person
of Christ alone. Redemption is in Christ. Salvation
is in Christ. Sanctification is in Christ.
Glory is in Christ. And all of the doctrines that
we deal with, justification, the doctrine of the resurrection,
the doctrine of glorification, all these doctrines have their
sum and substance in Christ. That being true, will you listen
to me? That being true, there are many, many, many, many, many
folks who actually believe what we preach is heresy. When we
preach to the world that salvation is by grace alone, do you know
there's a lot of people that don't believe that? When we preach
to the world that justification is something that was accomplished
by Christ alone on Calvary Street, do you know that many, many religious
folk who will tell you that you cannot be justified by merely
resting in the finished work of Jesus Christ? Did you know
that? When we tell people that we are secure for glory, all
of our salvation is absolutely secure on the basis of our substitute
and surety, Jesus Christ, do you know they won't believe that?
They'll call you a heretic because you have ceased to look to your
own works and have totally, totally depended upon the work of another
to get you to glory. Am I making some sense? Some
folk will hold you even to the slightest work. in order to say
you're accepted with God. But we preach what Jesus preached,
we preach what Paul preached, and that's this. Salvation is
the work of God from the beginning to the end. Salvation is the
work of God, not only from the beginning, but all the way through. Even to the end salvation is
the work of the triune God alone and those of us who are saved
are merely Beneficiaries of God's saving mercy and grace and Jesus
Christ. Is that the truth? That's what
we preach. That's what we believe and that's
what we rejoice it and our message is not so much about a doctrine
but a person When we preach and teach, what we preach and teach
is salvation through Jesus. So we point men and women to
Jesus. We show men and women that Jesus
is the God-man that accomplished everything that a sinner needs
to get right with God. So if we're talking about obedience,
guess what we preach? The obedience of Christ. When
we talk about suffering, guess what we preach? The sufferings
of Christ. When we talk about fellowship,
guess what we preach? The fellowship of Jesus Christ.
When we talk about union, guess what we preach? Union with God
through Christ. Everything we preach starts and
ends with Jesus Christ. See, I know right now somebody's
being blessed by what I'm saying. The shackles are being loose
because what I'm trying to help you understand is the message
of the gospel is not about do's and don'ts. It's about the one
who did it all. That's the message of the gospel.
And while as yet a man or a woman is still bound by the pride of
their self-righteousness, do you hear me? You're going to
persecute the gospeller. The gospeller will be persecuted
by the legalist. The gospeller will be persecuted
by the religious person. The gospeller will be persecuted
by the man or the woman who cannot hang all their soul on the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why Paul's standing here.
to build it a little bit more so we can get into the significance
of the resurrection. Not only is Paul the utter object
of hatred and vitriol on the part of these Jews, it's because
he used to be one of them. Listen, he used to be one of
those folks that hunted down Christians and killed Christians
and consented to their death. And they could depend on Paul
to get on his horse and ride and chase down a bunch of Christians.
But now he who persecuted the church is preaching the very
gospel that the church preached. And they can't stand that. They
can't stand that. Paul has assessed after 25 years
that this is my lot. I'm going to be persecuted by
my own Jewish brethren and a handful of Gentiles are going to hate
me. But after all, that's what God told him on the Damascus
Road. Isn't that what he said? He said, Paul, you're going to
be hated of all men for my name's sake. Nevertheless, listen, I'm
going to raise you up as a testimony to all men, to kings and magistrates
all over the world. So what's happening to Paul right
now? Paul is being led sovereignly by the Spirit of God, traversing
all over Asia Minor, Jerusalem, and now he's headed to Rome.
He won't get out of this court case. This court case is gonna
lock him up for good. He's gone now. He's gonna be
preaching from a jail cell and then from a hired home from here
on out. He's done 25 years in Asia. He's done 25 years free. He's
about to now demonstrate how the gospel cannot be bound even
though a man is bound. And after 2,000 years, we can
say that today. I'm sitting here thinking as
we were listening to the children sing. I'm thinking about you.
I'm thinking, are these people even remotely aware of the significance
of the message of redemption? Or do we have a house full of
religious people who are going to go to hell window shopping
the gospel of the grace of God? Isn't that a good inquiry? See,
you guys are eternity bound souls. Listen to me now. I tell our
men and our women in our studies, we all got to stand before God.
That's one of the implications of the resurrection. Just hold
on with me for a moment. We all got to stand before God
one day. And my soul, my soul says, do these folk know the
radical difference between window shopping and looking through
the window at Jesus and going inside and buying him and putting
him on? Do you know the difference? Am
I making some sense? This is radically important.
This is radically important. The difference between window
shopping is simply contemplating Him and putting Him on is believing
Him. Isn't that true? Window shopping
is just contemplating. Well, let's go here and see what
the preacher got to say. Put them on us. I want to hear Jesus.
I want to see Jesus. I want to feel Jesus. I want
to experience Christ in the power of his resurrection. I want to
know him in the full essence of my being. Am I making some
sense? All right, now let's go on to our next point. This issue
of the resurrection, the apostle Paul said, it's for this reason
that God has me right before you now. Look at verse 21 of
your text. I'll start at verse 19, verse
18. Whereupon certain Jews from Asia
found me purified in the temple, neither with the multitude nor
with the Tomo, who ought to have been before thee and object if
they had ought against me. This is what Paul is saying,
that the legitimate people who saw me, they should be here.
But they're not, and they're not because Paul didn't do a
thing wrong. Now Paul understands why he's
here. Look at the next verse. He says in verse 20, or else
let these, let these same here say, if they have found any evil
thing in me while I stood before the council, verse 21, except
this accepted before this one voice that I cried standing among
them. Watch this touching the resurrection
of the dead. I am called in question by you
this day and Paul's mind. He knew that he stood in front
of Felix for one reason, touching the resurrection. Touching the
resurrection. You don't have to go there. But
Paul I'm very impressed by him because he has literally Restated
factually everything that went on in chapters 21 through 23
and in chapter 23 He stood up in front of the rulers and he
said this I am a Pharisee the son of a Pharisee in hope of
the resurrection just like you in Hope of the resurrection All
right, let's talk about the resurrection a little bit. You know what the
resurrection is? It's rising again from the dead. In the Greek,
the word resurrection is anastasis, and it means to rise up or stand
up again. The idea of the resurrection
is that if a man dies, he can be raised again from the dead.
Now, immediately I see and I perceive the incredulity in your mind.
Do you believe in the resurrection? Do you believe that a person
can die and be raised again from the dead? This doctrine has been
taught for millenniums and for millenniums. And the fact of
the matter is, the Christian church has absolutely no basis
for existence if we don't believe in the resurrection. The resurrection
is the foundation and the capstone of the whole existence and vitality
and integrity of the Christian church. As I said earlier, everything
hangs on this reality. Did Christ come? Did Christ die
on Calvary's tree? Did Christ rise again the third
day? Did he rise again the third day?
I'm not going to sit here today and try to convince you of that
through the exposition of scripture. I believe most of you read enough
of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John to know that he rose again the
third day. Isn't that right? At least that's what they say.
For those of you who don't believe the Bible, well, they say that,
but you know, people say a whole lot of stuff. But what we've
always said is, you know, people never argue that Jesus was literally
born. They never argued that he literally lived. They don't
even argue that he died. We got him already, don't we?
They don't even argue that he died. They just argue that he
didn't rise again from the dead. The disciples made up all this,
but I'm here to tell you. Even to this day, no one has
been able to successfully controvert or contradict the proposition
that Jesus rose again from the dead. And here's what we say.
There are some radical implications by virtue of the fact that he
did rise from the dead. Some radical implications. I
want you to see those in your outline. There are six or seven
radical implications. First of all, the resurrection
underscores that the God of the Bible is not the God of the dead. He's the God of the living. See,
for you and I, everything appears to end at death, but the God
of the Bible doesn't look at death as anything but a transition
point. In Matthew chapter 22, you don't
have to go there, but the Lord Jesus was confronted by the Sadducees,
who didn't believe in the resurrection. And they gave him a question
concerning a woman who was married, whose wife, whose husband died,
and then they went through the hypotheses of seven husbands,
and finally she died, and the question was asked, Well, in
the resurrection, whose husband is she gonna be? You know, those
are smart religious folk. And Jesus said to them, knowing
that they didn't believe in the resurrection, He says, you neither
know the scriptures, nor the power of God. God is not the
God of the dead, but the God of the living. He's the God of
the living. The doctrine of the resurrection
underscores the nature of God. God is not dead, neither does
he deal with dead things. Everyone that's in God is alive.
Am I making some sense? I'm talking about all the way
back to Adam and Eve. I'm talking about Abel. I'm talking
about Enoch. I'm talking about Methuselah.
I'm talking about Abraham. All of them are alive and well
right now because God's nature is that of life. When Jesus says,
I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to
the Father but by me, we are talking about the God of resurrection
life. And so when we talk about the
resurrection, we are simply hinting at the reality of God's nature. It's a small thing for God to
raise the dead. It's a small thing for God to
raise the dead, but it's a critical reality with regards to those
of us who are going to have a relationship with him. So the first thing
that we know is that when we underscore the resurrection,
we are underscoring the nature of God. God is the God of the
living. But secondly, the concept of the resurrection, children
of God, if you know your Bibles, and I think our elders said it
in his prayer, I'm sure he did. It was foreshadowed all through
the Old Testament. How many times do you recall
the foreshadowing of the resurrection in the Old Testament? You know
those Old Testament passages point to New Testament reality,
right? And you know that very little that was accomplished
in the New Testament wasn't prefigured in the Old Testament. So the
doctrine of the resurrection goes all the way back. Just to
give you a few of them, you remember Abraham and Isaac? They had to
walk up Mount Moriah? And Abraham had to give up his
only begotten son? And as Abraham was about to thrust
him through with that knife, you remember that? God said,
Stop, Abraham. Now I know you believe me. then
Abraham looked behind him and he saw what caught in a thicket
a ram caught in a thicket right the Hebrew writer in chapter
11 says Abraham was willing to offer up Isaac because he believed
that God would raise him from the dead and do you know he was
raised from the dead in a figure by virtue of that ram caught
in the thicket Because Abraham offered up that ram to God instead
of his son. See, that's the doctrine of substitution.
That ram pointed to who? Christ, the sinner's substitute. That was the resurrection. You
may not have read this, too. You know, there are parts of
your Bible that you think are boring, like the book of Leviticus. Even
the word Leviticus is kind of like a boring name. But if you
were to break the word Leviticus down, what you would find out
is the word for binding or joining together, it means to attach
again. And the whole Levitical system was that body of theology
that the priests were to practice in order to reconcile God's people
to God. See, we've been separated from
God by our sin. Our sins have separated us between
us and our God. And Leviticus means that God
has found a way to bring sinners back into union with him. Now
it makes some sense, doesn't it? And this is why in the Levitical
code, you had all the sacrifices and all the offerings and all
these fastidious deeds and tasks. Now, do you remember the leper?
The law of the leper in Leviticus 13? The Bible says, when a man
has leprosy, and leprosy is a symbol of sin, isn't it? You and I are
lepers by nature. From the crown of our head to
the sole of our feet, we're nothing but sinners. Is that true? And
listen to me now, when the spirit of God has begun to convince
you of sin, he shows you more and more and more of that leprosy
in order to shut you up to Christ alone. When you're born again,
you're so happy because the Lord just saved you. And then a couple
of weeks into your salvation, you start seeing this old sin
stuff creeping up again. Isn't that right? What's going
on? What's not to see? The first
work of the Spirit is to convince you that you're a sinner. See,
because salvation must not be found in anything you are confident
in. And so the Holy Ghost is going
to show you that from the sole of your feet to the crown of
your head, that you are nothing but sin, like the leper. And
by nature, outside of Christ, we're in a leper colony. Isn't
that right? Can I say something? We're all
lepers even right now. Not me, Pastor. where you can't
be saved. Because in Leviticus 13, here's
what it says. The high priest has to come out
at a certain time and look upon the leper and to find on that
leper where the leprosy has spread all the way through his body.
The high priest has to examine the leper carefully, all of the
follicles in his hair, back of his neck, back of his ears. And
as long as he saw some raw flesh, he would call that leper unclean. Are you hearing me? And he'd
go back and then another seven days later, he'd go back and
examine that leper. And he'd look to see if the leprosy
had spread all the way through. And if the leprosy covered his
whole body so that there was no place where there was raw
flesh, he would say to the leper, you are clean. You are clean
because every part of your body is leprous now. Why does he say
that? because there can be no more
spreading of the leprosy. And what it testifies to is this,
until you admit that you are a sinner through and through,
you can never hear from the great high priest, Jesus Christ, clean,
clean, clean. You are ready now to be washed
in the blood and cleansed and brought back into fellowship
with the true and the living God. Am I making some sense? See, there are some
folks who say they're a little bit of sinners. But there are
some of us who are real who know that we're total sinners. And
we know that we must be a total sinner because we need a total
savior. And the total savior comes and
he did this thing in Leviticus 14 where he took two turtle doves. Now the two turtle doves remind
you of the Holy Ghost, don't they? But they also remind you
of the sacrifice of the poor because the turtle doves was
what poor folk offered when they couldn't offer a lamb. The turtle
dove points to Christ. Now one turtle dove was killed.
And the blood was poured into an earthen vessel. The other
turtle dove was held alive. He was called the living bird.
And the living bird was taken, and he was placed in that vessel,
dipped in the blood of the bird that was killed. You guys got
that? And that living bird was taken
by the high priest in the presence of the leper. The leper was sitting
there watching the gospel preached to him concerning his salvation.
And he said to the leper, now watch this. He let that bird
fly in the air, take off. You know what that leopard saw?
All of his sins taken away by the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
Am I making some sense? Do you know that leopard was
happy that day? That leopard was happy that day. He could
go put his clothes on and go into fellowship with the saints
of God because he had been cut off from the worship of God.
See, the bird that was killed represented Jesus Christ. The
bird that was let go represented the chosen one, the substitute
for sinners, that one who suffered or who actually had to put his
sins on Christ. That's you or that's me. If you
believe the gospel, you and I have been set free. But the flying
off of that bird also signifies the resurrection. I like it the
way that David said it in the Psalms. He said it in the Psalms.
He says, my soul, my soul has been set free from the snare
of the fowler. The snare has been broken and
I have escaped. Why am I talking like this? Because
the resurrection, will you hear me now? The resurrection is the
hope of every blood-bought sinner. The resurrection is my hope,
it's Paul's hope. It's your hope if you believe
the gospel. I remember what David said in the Psalms. You remember
David? David says, I will not be satisfied until I awake with
your likeness. Remember that? I will not be
sad. What is he talking about? Even
right now in our saved state, aren't we so sinful that we don't
even know and believe that we're saved sometime? I might get one
or two witnesses. Only the person who really wants
to be like Jesus is looking for the resurrection. Are you hearing
me? See, the rest of y'all want to
live your life down here and enjoy material goods and enjoy
these worldly, all of the worldly benefits of this life. But when
you are a sinner who has been redeemed by the blood and the
Spirit of God has operated in your heart and you've seen the
glory of God in Christ, you want to be like him. And the believer's
heart aches because he is not what he is supposed to be and
he's not what he will be. And so we long for that one act
that must take place. in order for us to realize it.
Am I making some sense? All right, we'll go on. So very
important. The Old Testament gave us glimpses
of this. I think it was Job in Job 14.
You can read it in your own time. You remember Job, he wanted to
die. Remember that? Job was suffering so bad. Lord, I just wanna die. In fact, why did you even let
me live? I hate the day that I was born. Why? Because he was
afflicted, right? He was suffering for the glory
of God. He didn't know it. But like you and like you and
I, you know, when we go through suffering, we cry, we complain,
we murmur, we bicker, don't we? Oh, I'm ready to die. You know,
when you suffer, you're ready to go to glory, right? Let me
let me back to when you suffer, you're ready to go, right? All
of a sudden, the resurrection sounds appealing to you. Here's
what Job said in Job chapter 14. If a man died, will he live
again? Oh, the appointed days of my
life. Will I wait on God? Well, I wait
on God until my change comes. He will have a desire to the
work of his hands. He's gonna remember me and he's
gonna call and I shall come forth and I'll be like him. Now the
book of Job is one of the oldest books in the Bible. And Job was
called a perfect man in his generation. And yet Job believed in the resurrection.
I know that my redeemer liveth and shall stand again on this
earth in the last day. He believed in the redemption
of sinners and the resurrection of the body. Do you believe in
it? See, the Old Testament is clearer. Ezekiel, you remember
what Ezekiel did in Ezekiel chapter 37 verses 1 through 10? God showed
him that valley full of dry bones. Ezekiel, can these bones live?
Ezekiel says, Lord, only you know. Ezekiel didn't say, yeah,
they can if they make a decision for Jesus. He didn't say that,
did he? Did he say that? Salvations of the Lord. And God
told Ezekiel, you're a gospel preacher. Here's what I want
you to do. I'm going to be working with you. We work together. I want you
to preach and then I'll send my spirit. Did you hear what
I just said? I want you to speak to these
dead bones. Don't get them to negotiate. Don't get them to
sign a contract. Don't get them to do a bargain. Don't get them
to make a vow. Just preach my word. And I'll come behind it
with my spirit and I will cause flesh and sinew and blood and
everything to rise up in there and I will give them life. Am
I making some sense? The resurrection took place right
there. See, we believe in the salvation of sinners. We believe
in sinners being saved. We believe in sinners coming
to Christ, but we believe that God must do it. Isaiah chapter 26, 19, you don't
have to go there. Isaiah is dealing in smack dab
in the middle of Israel's rebellion and disobedience before God.
But if you read the Old Testament prophets, you'll notice this
is funny. God's bringing judgment after judgment, after judgment,
after judgment. And all of a sudden he'll give a glimmer of hope
in that passage. Just smack dab in the middle of the passage.
Israel's in great rebellion against God. And here's what God says
in the person of Christ in Isaiah chapter 26, 19. thy dead men
your dead men Oh Heavenly Father shall live together with my dead
body shall they live Isaiah 26 19 prophesied of the resurrection
of God's people 700 years before Christ came Your dead men shall
live together with my dead body shall they live. What is he talking
about? He's talking about the consequence
of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ being the cause of
all of us who believe on him now being born again, being saved,
being partakers of the first resurrection. All right, let's
go on. A couple more things in our outline. Here's another truth
about the resurrection that's critical that people don't necessarily
like to hear. It's number C in your outline.
It's the ultimate dread of the ungodly. It's the ultimate dread
of the ungodly. Do you know the ungodly do not
like to hear this subject of the resurrection? Do you know
why? Because the resurrection says life doesn't end at the
grave. I don't care what E. Hart Toley or Oprah Winfrey say. Life does not end at the grave.
And when the Bible has taught you over and over and over and
over again that God Almighty reaches down deep inside the
grave and pulls up sinners, you know what it's saying? Even though
you die, you're going to face God in judgment. Jesus said in
John chapter five, around verse 25, the hour is coming when all
that are in the graves will hear the voice of the son of God.
And they that shall come forth shall come forth to the resurrection
of damnation or the resurrection of the just. Isn't that what
the Bible says? And so this is what men don't like to hear.
Paul preached of the resurrection in Acts 17 on Mars Hill. And
he says, God has given assurance unto all men in that he had raised
Jesus Christ from the dead. Therefore, there is a judgment.
See, when we contemplate the resurrection, what we're contemplating
is what are we getting resurrected for? We're getting resurrected
to face God in these bodies. Because Paul said in 2 Corinthians
chapter 5 around verse 12, these words, every one of us must stand
before the judgment seat of Jesus Christ in order to give an account
of the things that we have done in this body, whether they be
good or whether they be bad. That's why folk don't like to
hear about the resurrection. That's why they wanted to kill
him on that. See, the Sadducees didn't believe in the resurrection.
Now, the Pharisees believed in the resurrection. But you know
what I found out? They only believed in the resurrection
of good people. Isn't that crazy? They said only
the just shall be resurrected. Well, that means nobody would
be resurrected. Isn't that right? Because the Bible has informed
us that there's not a just man upon the earth that doeth good
and sinneth not. Isn't that right? All of sinning comes short of
the glory of God. Isn't that what the Bible says? There's
none righteous. No, no way. There's none that
doeth good. There's none that seeketh after God. There's none
that understand. If we're waiting on a just man, nobody would rise
again if it wasn't for the one just man. who rose as a representative
of all who believe on him. Am I making some sense? Yeah,
see that's why they don't want to hear because on the last day,
John already told us in Revelation chapter 21 verse 11, and I saw
the dead, small and great, stand before the great white throne
judgment, from which the heavens and the earth had fled away.
There was no place for them to hide. See, we hide from God down
here, don't we? We hide in our jobs, we hide in our schools,
we hide in our iPods, we hide in our music. We hide from God,
don't we? As long as we're unsaved, we're
hiding behind the fig leaves of our own insecurity. Am I telling
the truth? But God's gonna strip all that
from us on the last day. Unless you make your hiding place
in Jesus Christ. Unless you make your hiding place
in Jesus Christ, God's gonna strip you on that last day. There's
some of you right now hiding from God. Some of you are hiding
from God in church. Do you know they tell us that
one of the most common places that folk hide from God is in
church? Now how can that be? It's because the gospel's not
being preached. Sinners are comfortable to live
in utter and total rebellion against God in church because
the gospel's not being preached and the light's not being shined
into their hearts. But there is a resurrection coming
and there's a judgment day coming. God has promised that by virtue
of the resurrection of Christ from the dead. All right. The
next point, the resurrection is the ultimate happiness of
redeemed sinners. It's the ultimate happiness of
redeemed sinners. In first Corinthians chapter
15, Paul says, I show you a mystery. We don't all sleep, but we shall
all be changed in a twinkling of an eye at the last trump.
The trump shall sound and we will be caught up and changed. in a nanosecond, this body of
flesh will drop, we will be transformed, we will be wholly encompassed
by God's glory and we'll be just like Jesus. That's what the believer
is looking for. The resurrection is a joyful
doctrine to me. Romans chapter 8 tells us about
it It says the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is alive
because of righteousness But the same spirit that raised Jesus
from the dead shall also quicken Your mortal bodies that you may
live see we need these bodies to be quick and don't we all
right? I'm gonna be a little pastoral
here to help some of you out before I get to my last point
if you're a Christian and you love the Lord and you know the
truth of the gospel and you're resting in Christ's grace alone
and You are a man or a woman under construction. Can I get
a witness? I just want to make sure, because
I know some of y'all don't think that. Now listen to me, and I'm saying
this particularly for you couples. Wife, you still got a lot of
problems. Husband, you still got a lot
of problems. Both of y'all are called together
to work this thing out. to make this journey towards
glory together, recognizing and acknowledging that God has placed
within you the incorruptible seed of his righteous son Jesus
Christ, but you're going to be having a struggle until you hit
this dust. Am I making some sense? And the
goal of husbands and wives is to live together in this mutual
journey of weakness and infirmity and a need and necessity of Jesus
Christ as your strength and as your guidance and as your power
until the day of the resurrection. And when you find yourselves
getting on each other's nerves, that don't happen to most of
you. It just happens to me and my wife. When you find yourself
getting on each other's nerves, don't say a thing. Just simply
say, you know, Lord, you're going to fix all this in the resurrection.
So just give me strength for another day. Are you hearing
me? See, every year, and we talked
about the cycle of things. God blesses us to go through
cycles. Six days you work, on the seventh day you come to hear
Pastor Jesse preach. Isn't that right? And then you're
working, because I'm preaching to you for at least an hour.
That's work for most of y'all. Because you know, in this generation,
you can't listen to a message over 20 minutes these days. And
so you're working on Sunday, too. So maybe God will give you
some overtime for sitting and listening to me. Every year we get a chance to
revisit this doctrine of the resurrection, to recalibrate
our thinking, to reprioritize our values, to reestablish our
focus, to be reminded once again that the resurrection is our
hope, not a better job, not a better 401k plan, not a better economy,
Christ and Christ coming is our hope. Am I making some sense?
Christ and Christ coming in God's people live in hope of the resurrection
We live in hope of the resurrection Our answer to all our problems
is Christ rose again, and I'm gonna rise again with him. That's
our answer Am I making some sense? Thank you. I love that. Thank
you. Remember that Remember that and here's the reason why Peter
told us in first Peter chapter 1 verse 3 that we can give thanks
to God the Father Who has begotten us again unto a living hope a
vital hope you know the vital hope is it's the opposite of
a dead hope a Living hope is a hope that constantly reaffirms
itself predicated on something it looks forward to God has begotten
us again unto a vital and living hope. Watch this, by the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead. You and I are happy because Christ
rose. Because the implications are
this, if he rose, I'm definitely going to rise. If he rose, I'm
definitely going to rise. See, that's the confidence of
the believer. And God has reserved for us an inheritance in glory. In glory. Let me help a few of
you before I get to my last point and close. The inheritance is
in glory. We have a brother who is one
of our lawyers in our church. We have a number of lawyers and
one of our lawyers, his office is right next to my office and
we commiserate all the time about the nature of men. He's a lawyer
so he has to deal with a lot of cases. Family cases of over
property and stuff and one of the most frequent Just just awful
terrible things that we know is that when loved ones die Don't
folk act a fool when loved ones die. I Don't believe blood is
thicker than water. I just don't believe it when
people die They turn it to vultures and cackles and dragons and snakes
and vipers over the money It's horrible It's horrible and brother
Alec could come to me beat down Pastor man I just can't believe
what they want to do to this little old lady and I have to
keep reminding him again Alec Jeremiah chapter 17 verse 9 the
heart is deceitful and desperately wicked above everything who can
know it when you don't realize that your inheritance is in heaven
and You're grasping after everything you can get down here and you'll
kill your neighbor and your brother and your mama to get it. Am I telling the truth? So now
watch what God did for us. This is what God did for us.
God took our inheritance and stuck it way in heaven. It's way up there. It's way up
there in heaven. Because do you know what the
Christian church has done? Falsely assuming that we can
embrace and apply and enter into our inheritance now. We have
torn the church up under the inheritance doctrine. We have
utterly destroyed the church. We have taken those spiritual
blessings in heavenly places and made them carnal blessings
in earthly places. And we have told God we want
houses and cars and businesses down here instead of what he
has for us in heaven. And the world on the outside
is watching and saying, those folks ain't no better than us.
They're more stupid, by the way, because we're smarter than them
at this business. As Jesus said, the children of
darkness are wiser than the children of light concerning material
things. Stupid. You know, our stupidity lies
in the fact that we don't understand the implications of the resurrection.
I'm done right about here. I just want you to hear it. Our
stupidity lies in the fact that we don't understand the implications
of the resurrection. The resurrection is rooted in
Christ. It's rooted in his perfect personhood and his successful
work of redemption. The resurrection has its importance,
ladies and gentlemen, because of Jesus Christ. If Jesus Christ
was never a savior, a substitute, and surety for sinners, the doctrine
of the resurrection wouldn't mean a thing. Will you hear what
I'm saying now? If you preach the resurrection,
but don't preach the resurrection through Jesus, you're not preaching
a gospel resurrection. The resurrection is important
to us because when Jesus died, I died. When Jesus was buried,
I was buried. When Jesus rose again, I rose
again. When Jesus went to glory, I went
to glory. When Jesus was seated at the
right hand of God the Father, I was seated at the right hand
of God the Father in Him. When Jesus was made to rule,
I was made to rule in Him. And when Jesus comes again, I'm
coming again with Jesus. That's what makes the resurrection
important to every believing Christian. Am I making some sense? Therefore, as I close, I want
you to get this now, please. Whatever doctrine it be, the
resurrection or justification or the church or whatever, every
doctrine of the Bible must begin, has its ultimate substance in
and its culminating conclusion in Jesus Christ. Christ is everything
to us and Christ is our resurrection. Amen.