Let us turn tonight to 1 Corinthians
chapter 15. As we all know, this is the last
Sunday service that we will have and attend as a church family
in the year 2020. Several weeks ago, one of the
persons who was a part of our church passed away, and when
I heard the news, I began thinking about the text that I want to
speak to us from this evening. I was not able to preach the
funeral service, but if I had, this was the text that I had
wanted to preach. Saying this is the last Sunday
service in 2020, I want to speak to us from verse 26, which also
speaks to us about a last, that is the last enemy that shall
be destroyed is death. The last enemy, verse 26, the
last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. The first point in my message
is this, what is the context in which our text is found? Well, we recognize that the whole
1 Corinthians chapter 15, the whole chapter is speaking about
the believers bodily resurrection. There were some evidently who
had come into the church at Carth after Paul had left there, and
they denied the bodily resurrection. If you notice in verse 12, in
the middle way of that verse, he asks the question, how say
some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? Satan always is trying to sow
not only discord among the brethren, but false doctrine. among God's
people. And so we see, even in these
early churches, that false doctrine, denial of the resurrection of
the body of a believer was already being disseminated among some
of the churches. But first, what is the context?
Well, the context of our text, the context in which our text
is found, concerns the bodily resurrection of all believers. I want you to notice that in
the first part of the chapter, the apostle declares how that
the Lord Jesus Christ's death, his burial and resurrection,
according to the scriptures, is the gospel of our salvation. Notice in verse one, moreover,
brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto
you which also you have received and wherein you stand, by which
also you are saved, that is, by the gospel. The apostle Paul
said, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation unto all that
believe, unto the Jew first and also to the Greek. if you keep in memory what I
preached unto you, unless you have believed in vain. For I
delivered unto you first of all, of first importance, this is
of first importance what he's going to mention here. For I
delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how
that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures,
that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according
to the scriptures. For a person to be saved, for
you to be saved, what do we mean by that? For you to have your
sins forgiven and be reconciled unto God. We know that first
of all, God's justice must be satisfied. There's no sinner,
and all men by nature have sinned and come short of the glory of
God. There is no sinner, there's no child of Adam who will be
saved lest God's justice is fully satisfied. And so first of all,
the apostle says, the Lord Jesus died for our sins according to
the scriptures. according to the scriptures."
Now, when he said scriptures, of course, he refers to the Old
Testament. That is all the scriptures they
had at that time. He died for our sins according
to the scriptures. The just for the unjust, the
Apostle Peter tells us in his first letter. The curse from
which he redeemed us And that curse was death, so he was made
a curse being nailed to the tree. Now, there's one thing that should
be apparent to every person who takes up the Bible and begins
to read it. There's one subject that runs
all the way through, and that is the blood, the blood that
maketh an atonement. Without the shedding of blood,
there is no remission of sin. how that he died according to
the scriptures. The life of the flesh in Leviticus
17 and verse 11, God said, for the life of the flesh is in the
blood. When we observe the Lord's table,
we have the bread and we have the wine. The bread we recognize
represents his broken body, his body which was broken for us,
his His blood is represented by the wine, but they are separated,
showing that there was death. Blood. Without the shedding of
blood, there is no remission of sin. In that verse in Leviticus,
God said, For the life of the flesh is in the blood. Remove the blood from this body,
and there is no life. He died. He died for our sins
according to the scriptures. And God went on to say, and I
have given it unto you upon the altar to make an atonement for
your souls, for it is the blood that maketh atonement for the
soul. Now, when God said, I have given
it unto you upon the altar, that is the blood. The death of the
Lord Jesus Christ was according to the scriptures. It was pictured
in those Old Testament types that he died according to the
scriptures, according to those types and that blood upon the
altar. You say, well, the Lord Jesus
Christ, he died. Yes. And he shed his blood, the
flesh. the body that was prepared him
by God the Holy Spirit, and it was upon the altar, the altar
of his deity. And he said this, he said it
is the altar that sanctifies the gift. And the way that the blood of
one man could pay the debt of all the sins of all of his people
is because he's more than just a man He is a man, but he is
the God-man. And the blood was upon the altar
to make an atonement for our souls. For it is the blood that
maketh an atonement for the soul. Years ago, they said in the British
Navy, when they had their ships all over the world, and on those
ships they had a lot of ropes, a lot of ropes. And the story
was that in the middle, the very center of every rope on the British
ship was a scarlet thread. And just like in those ropes,
so in the word of God, the blood pictured in the Old Testament,
but shared in the New Testament, Christ died for our sins according
to the scriptures. This is the gospel, isn't it? how that He, who He is first
of all, and how that He made atonement by the shedding of
His blood. His atoning work is referred
to as a propitiation in some places. By the blood He made
propitiation. What does that mean? That means
that He turned away the wrath of God. God's wrath was upon
all men because of our sin. But through this propitiation,
God's wrath has been turned away from his people. But notice it
says, his burial was also according to the scriptures, his burial. It was pictured in the Old Testament
scriptures. And I thought about this again
this past week, and I thought, how was it pictured? How was
his burial pictured? And I wonder if it wasn't pictured
by the scapegoat. You remember on the great day
of atonement, one day in the year when the high priest would
go into the Holy of Holies with the blood of one goat. There was two goats that were
brought that day to the tabernacle and they cast lots upon the heads
of those goats and the Lord's goat, the lot fell for him to
be the sacrifice and his blood was shed and carried into the
Holy of Holies where the mercy seat was behind that veil And
it was sprinkled there on the mercy seat. And that word mercy
seat is the same word which is translated propitiation. The
Lord Jesus Christ, he is our propitiation. He himself is our
propitiation. Here in his love, not that we
love God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation
for our sins. But remember that second goat.
When the high priest came back out, he laid his hands upon the
second goat, and he's called escape goat. And then by a worthy
man, the scripture says he was led away. And the picture is
he was never to be seen again. The high priest put his hands
upon this goat and confessed upon him the sins and the iniquities
and the transgressions And each one of those words tells us something
different about our sin against God. Iniquity, sins, transgressions. And we're guilty in every way.
And they were placed upon the head of that live goat, and it
was led away, never to be seen again. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ,
we are told in Isaiah 53, that God made to meet upon him the
iniquity of us all. In other words, our sins, the
sins of His chosen people, His elect people, they were imputed,
they were charged to the Lord Jesus Christ, and when He was
taken down from that cross, His body, and laid in the tomb, so
He carried our sins away. He was buried according to the
Scriptures. But we read also, he was raised
according to the scriptures. On the third day, he rose from
the grave. On the day of Pentecost, when
Peter stood up to preach, and he quoted from that psalm I read
at the beginning of the service, Psalm 16. But he said this, whom
God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death, Thou will not leave my soul in
hell, in Sheol. In that state, when the soul
is separated from the body, prophetically in that psalm, the Lord Jesus
Christ said, Thou shall not leave my soul in Sheol. It was not
possible that he should be holding of it. The pains of death, having
loosed the pains of death because I like that. It was not possible.
Amen? Praise God, it was not possible
that the Lamb of God, the Son of God, God manifest in the flesh,
that He should be held by the grave. Why? Because He had conquered
sin. He had defeated Satan there upon
the tree. Look in Romans chapter 1. This
is a very well-known passage to all of us, but how it reminds
us of how he was declared to be the son of God. In Romans
chapter one, in verse one, Paul said, Paul, a servant of Jesus
Christ, called to be an apostle, separated under the gospel of
God, which he had promised to for by his prophets in the holy
scriptures, concerning his son Jesus Christ our Lord. The gospel
concerns Jesus Christ our Lord. His death, his burial, and his
resurrection according to the scriptures. Which was made of
the seed of David according to the flesh. Being a man, he was
a descendant of David. He was declared and declared
to be the son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness
by the resurrection from the dead. And then look in Romans
4, the last verse of Romans chapter 4. Who was delivered for our offenses. And oh my, how many times have
we offended? How many times have you offended? He was delivered for our offenses,
but He was raised for our justification. In other words, by His resurrection,
God declared the work was finished and accepted. Now back in our
text in 1 Corinthians 15, so the context in which our text
is found, and our text is the last enemy that shall be destroyed
is death. The context concerns the resurrection
of the body of believers. And I want you to notice in verse
13, the apostle shows that there is a union between Christ and
every believer. We talk about His mystical body,
and we use that word mystical because it is a mystery. But
every child of God is a member of His body, His spiritual body,
the temple that He is building. And He is the head. And you notice
in verse 13, Paul said, But if there be no resurrection of the
dead, as some, I might say, as some are teaching you, some are
saying there in your midst that there's no resurrection of the
dead. But listen. Listen, if there be no resurrection
of the dead, then Christ is not risen. Because you see, there's
a union between the head and the body. Christ is the head
and we are members of his body. Those of us who know him as our
Lord and as our savior. And if there be no resurrection
of the body, then there's no resurrection of the head. But
if there be a resurrection of the head, and yes there was,
there shall be a resurrection of the body, that is, of all
the members of his mystical body. The context of our text is the
truth about the resurrection of the body of all believers
who sleep in Jesus. Second, how did death become
our enemy? The last enemy that shall be
destroyed is death. How did death become an enemy? Well, we know that it became
an enemy in the Garden of Eden. And some of the writers suggest
that death is called the last enemy because of this order. There's Adam and Eve in the garden.
And the first enemy that approaches is Satan, and he's there as the
tempter. And because Adam disobeyed, because
Adam disobeyed God and succumbed to the temptation, then entered
sin, the second enemy. And as a result of sin, then
came death. The last enemy. Now some suggest
that is what the apostle means here when he refers to death
as the last enemy. And we see that order and certainly
that's true. Satan, sin, death. In that order
they come and death is last. But I do not believe that's the
reason for the text being called the last enemy of every child
of God. And this begs this question,
which death is the last enemy? The last enemy is death. Which
is the last or which death is the last enemy? Well, we know
from the word of God, there are three kinds of death. There's
spiritual death, spiritual death, and spiritual death is destroyed
in every believer in the new birth. Here we come into this
world spiritually dead, dead in trespasses and sins, and then
by the power of God, the Holy Spirit, God's people are quickened
and made alive, and spiritual death is destroyed, enabling
us to know God. This is life eternal, that they
might know Thee, the only true God in Jesus Christ, whom Thou
hast sent. Then we know that there's not
only a spiritual death, but the Bible tells us that there is
an eternal death, an eternal separation from God, which no
child of God shall experience. The apostle Paul in Romans 8
said, For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor
angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor
things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature
shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is
in Christ Jesus our Lord. Plus, eternal death will never
be destroyed. Our text tells us the last enemy
that shall be destroyed is death, not spiritual death, That death
is destroyed when a person is born of the Spirit of God. And
not eternal death, for that death shall never be destroyed. It
is eternal death. The death which is the last enemy
in our text is physical death. The physical death that all of
us will experience in time, the Lord willing, if the Lord Jesus
doesn't come in our lifetime. Remember in the church at Thessalonica,
Paul, in the fourth chapter of 1 Thessalonians, wrote those
words to comfort those believers concerning them which had fallen
asleep in Jesus. When, that's my third and last
point, when shall the last enemy be destroyed? As I thought about
the word destroyed, the last enemy shall be destroyed. The
last enemy, which is death, shall be destroyed. Physical death
was defeated at the cross. It was defeated. When the Lord
Jesus Christ walked out of that tomb, he conquered. He defeated physical death when
he rose from the dead. And through the sacrifice of
the Lord Jesus, death is now turned into the believer's friend. You say death is the believer's
friend? Absolutely. Absolutely. Through the Lord Jesus Christ's
victory over death, it has been disarmed. It did have a sting,
but the sting of death has been removed. Look down to verse 55.
1 Corinthians 15, 55. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and
the strength of sin is the law, but thanks be to God which giveth
us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Remember this. The death of a believer, the
physical death of a believer, is not in any way considered
to be punishment. The Lord Jesus Christ satisfied
for our sins. John Gill said, it, that is,
the physical death, it is the saint's passage to glory. That's what it is. It's the saint's
passage to glory. It is what frees them from the
troubles of this world and is their way to the joys of another. Their way to the joys of another
world. Why then is death called the
last enemy? When a child of God dies, for
instance, if you here tonight as a child of God, if you were
to die this evening, you would immediately, your soul, your
spirit, would immediately go into the presence of the Lord. Paul said to depart and to be
with Christ, which is far better. And going into the presence of
Christ, your soul, you would be done with Satan. He's not
coming there. You would be done with sin. Sin's
not entering there. But your body, would be put into
the ground and turned back to the dust. The last enemy for
a believer that shall be destroyed is death. And when shall that
take place? Well, look down to verse 51. It's going to take place when
the Lord Jesus Christ returns again. Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep. In other
words, when Christ comes again, there will be believers. There will be those who know
the Lord here upon the earth. Not all believers will have died. There will be living believers. Now I'll show you a mystery.
We shall not all sleep. And isn't it amazing that in
the New Testament that the death of a believer is always spoken
of with that word sleep. sleep. And we believe it is because
no one is afraid to go to sleep. No one's afraid to go to sleep. It's just a natural thing. Go
to your bed this evening and lie down and go to sleep. We
shall not all sleep. But we shall be changed. See,
flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven. In a moment,
this is all going to take place. I don't know if there's even
a register of time here, a moment, faster even than a moment. In a moment, in the twinkling
of an eye, can you, does that register on some scale, the twinkling
of an eye? Can that be measured? I don't
think so. Just that fast. You say, well,
I don't understand how all this is going to happen. We don't
have to understand how it's all going to happen. But in the twinkling
of an eye, at the last trump, for the trumpet shall sound,
and the dead, here we are, those who've died in the Lord, those
whose bodies sleep in the ground, shall be raised incorruptible."
Then it is that their bodies are going to be raised, and it's
not going to be like this body. It's going to be like His body,
His glorious body, His sinless body. It's going to be raised
incorruptible, and then those which are alive, they're going
to be changed. Now those who are alive in 1
Thessalonians, Paul tells us, they're not going to precede
or prevent, precede those who sleep in the Lord. It's going
to happen in an instant, in a moment of time, and yet it's going to
happen simultaneously. When those who are alive shall
be changed and those whose bodies sleep in the ground shall be
raised, and in a moment. shall be raised incorruptible,
and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put
on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when
this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal
shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass
the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. The last enemy shall be destroyed,
which is death. When? When the Lord Jesus Christ
comes again to receive his own. I pray that the Lord will bless
The truth tonight to all of us, we've got a bright future. We've
got a bright future, don't we? Those of us who know Christ,
one day we shall all be with Him. And not only be with Him, but
be like Him. That's the hope that every child
of God has, the blessed hope that Christ is going to come
again. All right, David.