[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the preaching ministry of the Agopic Baptist Church in George, South Africa.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good morning church.
[SPEAKER_01]: As always, it's a joy to be with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're visiting this morning, a special welcome to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope that you can stay with all the church this morning when you leave at the end of the service
[SPEAKER_01]: that you heard from the Lord through His Word, and that you were encouraged, maybe even convicted.
[SPEAKER_01]: We want that.
[SPEAKER_01]: We want the conviction and the encouragement of God's words.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I hope that is true for you this morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: Please turn with me to John chapter 20 as we continue our study through this gospel according to John.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as we have seen, John's purpose in writing
[SPEAKER_01]: Now as you believe, we have life in the name of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: Up until this point, we've seen that Jesus has been betrayed.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has been arrested, tried, convicted, and he was crucified.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we last heard that he was laid in a garden tomb outside the city walls of Jerusalem
[SPEAKER_01]: all of the followers of Jesus have been left in despair the evening of Friday, so he was crucified on a Friday.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were left in despair on the evening of Friday and then Saturday the Sabbath rest was a silent day.
[SPEAKER_01]: Christ is in the tomb and they are left hopeless, bereaved with
[SPEAKER_01]: But now, in chapter 20, we come to the early hours of Sunday, morning, the first day of the week.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what we're going to hear is that although the disciples of Jesus are shocked and amazed on this morning to find an empty tomb, we're going to hear is that the Scriptures actually foretold all along throughout the Old Testament, the Scriptures foretold that the Christ must rise from the dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Christ that the Old Testament promises is not a dead Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a living reigning Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what we're going to see this morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: So our title is that He, the Christ, must rise from the dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's look at our passage together, John chapter 20, verses 1 through 10 for this morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early while it was still dark and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.
[SPEAKER_01]: So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, which I believe is John.
[SPEAKER_01]: The other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, they have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we do not know where they have laid him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Peter went out with the other disciple and they were going toward the tomb.
[SPEAKER_01]: Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first, and scooping to look in.
[SPEAKER_01]: He saw the linen cloth lying there, but he did not go in.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he saw the linen cloths lying there in the face cloth, which had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up and it's in a place by itself.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then the other disciple would reach the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed.
[SPEAKER_01]: For as yet they did not understand the scripture that he must rise from the dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: then the disciples went back to their homes until they're let's pray together.
[SPEAKER_01]: Heavenly Father, we love you, we love your Son, and we love you Holy Spirit, three in one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Father, for your Word.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, that it is powerful and able to give us life as we abide in this Word.
[SPEAKER_01]: How we know it, believe it and live according to it by faith that God is able to do all that He has promised.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the confession of a Christian, that God exists and that God is true and that He rewards those who seek Him who believe in Him who follow Him, hoping in the righteousness of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so Lord as we gather this morning around your word to be both convicted and encouraged
[SPEAKER_01]: by the word, and by your Holy Spirit who wields the word as we gather, would you bless us Lord?
[SPEAKER_01]: And Father, if anyone is here today, who is not believing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Someone who knows in their mind the story of the gospel, the story of Jesus Christ crucified, risen and reigning from heaven, or someone knows that in their head, yet they are not
[SPEAKER_01]: Following this risen Lord, I pray that they will not leave today before the Spirit of God crushes them, crushes their pride and arrogance and love for the world so that they can rise with Christ and have new life become a new creation and Christ Jesus our Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that is the only way that a human being can experience the eternal kinds of joys, the joys
[SPEAKER_01]: I ask all these things in Jesus name, amen.
[SPEAKER_01]: John is writing this gospel to both believers and skeptics alike.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've seen that it's hard to tell sometimes if he intended this gospel for believers to encourage the already believing that he wants them to keep on believing or if he's calling unbelievers to believe for the first time.
[SPEAKER_01]: and there are several passages in this gospel where it could go either way.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I believe he's writing to both.
[SPEAKER_01]: He knows both will read and hear this gospel account.
[SPEAKER_01]: And a big part of John's goal is to give testimony to an eyewitness account because he is an eyewitness of these things.
[SPEAKER_01]: And John 20 is essential evidence in John's eyewitness testimony because John claims he was one of the first on the scene to witness the empty tomb the morning of the resurrection.
[SPEAKER_01]: Think of a scene that is undisturbed by pedestrians and other responders or weather or time.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a undisturbed scene and John is saying I am one of the first
[SPEAKER_01]: To run onto the scene when I heard the account, or I heard that the tune was empty, I ran there and I was one of the first on the scene.
[SPEAKER_01]: Think about the details in our passage, which seem completely unnecessary in these few verses, until we realize John is giving eyewitness testimony.
[SPEAKER_01]: And even today, a good sign of eyewitness testimony of genuine eyewitness testimony are some of the random details that are eyewitness remembers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's just stood out to them and, you know, whether it was the clothing of someone's, the color of someone's clothing or the fact that that lady was wearing a hat or that the dog ran across the street as I was driving to the scene of something.
[SPEAKER_01]: It seems unusual to those listening.
[SPEAKER_01]: but it's a good sign that that person actually was there because they probably wouldn't have just made that up or come up with that on their own.
[SPEAKER_01]: First we see that John says, Mary ran.
[SPEAKER_01]: He wasn't with Mary while she ran, but you can imagine John seeing Mary run bursting through a door to come into where John and Peter were sitting or discouraged together and Mary's out of breath.
[SPEAKER_01]: She has ran from the scene and has burst through the door out of breath saying they have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we do not know where they have laid him she has distraught out of breath He recounts this It was unusual to see a woman running through Jerusalem But then we're told John and Peter start running together back the way that she had come
[SPEAKER_01]: and they're running together and then John says that he outran Peter and when he reaches the two he's there by himself where it was Peter he left the house with me where is he now and this is not simply petty rivalry like two siblings I know all about that but I don't think that is what John why John recounts this and he mentions it twice I don't think this is petty rivalry
[SPEAKER_01]: But instead, this is John reliving the memory that when he hears the, the, the, the report that the tune is empty.
[SPEAKER_01]: He runs so hard, Peter and him head out and he runs so hard that when he gets to the tune, Peter is not there.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's, he's still coming in the distance and he's there by himself.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's reliving the memory.
[SPEAKER_01]: Peter was an older man, maybe 10 years older.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then John, and so John is younger, he's probably in his late teens or early 20s.
[SPEAKER_01]: Peter's already married, has a mother-in-law, and so he's probably in his mid-30s.
[SPEAKER_01]: So John outruns him, and he finds himself alone at the tomb.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is him reliving the memory.
[SPEAKER_01]: John vividly remembers how you arrived at the open tomb and he's by himself.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's quiet.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the early mornings.
[SPEAKER_01]: The sun is barely risen.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's stupes to look into this dark cave.
[SPEAKER_01]: Terrified of what he might find.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then left speechless by what he saw.
[SPEAKER_01]: He sees linen cloths lying there.
[SPEAKER_01]: but no body, no body.
[SPEAKER_01]: Peter then arrives at the empty tune and being a man of action, as always, he just charges straight in to face this new difficulty head on.
[SPEAKER_01]: He sees the linen claws that at once wrap Jesus' body, and then he also sees a face cloth because he's gone in, he can see more detail.
[SPEAKER_01]: He sees a face cloth which would have been wrapped
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's folded up and placed neatly to the side.
[SPEAKER_01]: John then enters in behind Peter and he sees the linen cloths lying there in the face cloth folded up and John vividly remembers that's the moment when the veil was lifted off of his eyes.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the moment when I saw it I believe.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what our passage says.
[SPEAKER_01]: He saw and believed that Jesus was raised from the dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Lord revealed that to him in that moment when he saw the veil was lifted off of his eyes and he knew his Lord was risen.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is an eyewitness account.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the first thing I want us to have in mind this morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: And eyewitness account by the first responders to the report of the empty tomb, confirmed by two men, which was the requirement for evidence to be submitted in a Jewish court of law at the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: So think about who John is writing to.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's writing also to Jews.
[SPEAKER_01]: who have in their mind that you have to have two male witnesses for the witness testimony to be accepted as legal, as true.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I believe that is why John is recording this for his readers.
[SPEAKER_01]: But John's account does more.
[SPEAKER_01]: It also shows that Jesus' resurrection is unlike any other resurrection that had ever happened before.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, people had been raised in the Old Testament and Jesus Himself raised people from the dead, but Jesus' resurrection is unlike any other resurrection that had happened before.
[SPEAKER_01]: And specifically, Jesus' resurrection is contrasted with Lazarus' resurrection or rising from the grave, which had happened only a short while before.
[SPEAKER_01]: Remember when Jesus called to dying or to decaying Lazarus rather he'd been dead for days, when Jesus called to Lazarus saying Lazarus come out, Lazarus's body was restored, but remember the detail of that resurrection, or that rising from the dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: because he came out hobbling and stumbling out of his tomb because his face was covered and his body still wrapped and tied up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Their process of wrapping up a body in this linen cloth and tying the body is actually bound to the body together so that it was nearly impossible for someone to get out of that on their own.
[SPEAKER_01]: The body was bound, the legs were bound, the arms were tied to the side, and that's how Lazarus came out of the tomb, hobbling, stumbling, and Jesus had to give instructions to those standing around saying, unbind Lazarus and let him go because Lazarus couldn't do it himself.
[SPEAKER_01]: He came still, he came hobbling out of his tomb still bound.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Jesus' resurrection is different.
[SPEAKER_01]: The linen cloths that bound Jesus were told were still lying there.
[SPEAKER_01]: John repeats this twice, he's emphasizing this point.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were still lying there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Most likely implying that they still lay there in the general position they were in while wrapped around Jesus' body in the face cloth lying off to the side.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the cloths are lying here, as the body would have laid in the face cloth is here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus did not hobble out of the tomb like Lazarus did, and it would have been nearly impossible like I said for anyone to wrestle their way out of the wrappings on their own.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as a side note, if grave robbers had stolen the body, then they would have taken the valuable linen and spices.
[SPEAKER_01]: This was extremely expensive material.
[SPEAKER_01]: If misguided disciples removed Jesus' body, it would have been on the sacrilegious and just respectful to just unwrap the body there.
[SPEAKER_01]: They would have taken the entire body with the rapings.
[SPEAKER_01]: And let's just say for a moment that someone did, let's just imagine that someone did unwrap the body and just take the body out of the tomb.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then the linen cloths would have been left in disarray and not neatly lying there as if the body was still there or as the body had laid.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we shouldn't forget that there were Roman guards posted just outside.
[SPEAKER_01]: If thieves had broken in, they would have been in a panic and in hurry.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are Roman soldiers outside.
[SPEAKER_01]: They wouldn't have neatly left the linen cloths there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So my argument to you, and I believe this is what the argument John is making,
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that the linen cloths lying there in the general position they were in while wrapped around Jesus' body points to one conclusion?
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus' resurrection was different.
[SPEAKER_01]: His body rose up through the grave cloths that bound his body.
[SPEAKER_01]: His body rose up through them, and he left them behind.
[SPEAKER_01]: They could not bind him any longer.
[SPEAKER_01]: When Lazarus was raised from the dead, his natural body was restored to him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he would go on living for years after that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But his natural body would one day die again.
[SPEAKER_01]: Think about that just for a second.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every other resurrection that it ever happened in Scripture, ever been recorded previously and there were several.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every other one though, that person's natural body was restored
[SPEAKER_01]: But then they died again.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no one living today who was raised 3,000 years ago and they just kept on living.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not what the rising in the Old Testament were like.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were different.
[SPEAKER_01]: A natural body was restored.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then they died again.
[SPEAKER_01]: The body he was raised with was a glorified body, we're told.
[SPEAKER_01]: A body that would never die again, and that could not be restrained by natural obstacles.
[SPEAKER_01]: Later in the Gospel of John, we're going to hear how Jesus's body is able to come into a locked room.
[SPEAKER_01]: John's gonna tell give two accounts where the disciples are hiding inside of a room with the doors locked out of fear of the juice.
[SPEAKER_01]: but then suddenly Jesus is in their midst.
[SPEAKER_01]: Unless we think though, okay, he's just a spirit floating around.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus then says, here, look, touch, touch me.
[SPEAKER_01]: You could touch this body.
[SPEAKER_01]: You could put your finger in the holes in his hand.
[SPEAKER_01]: They could touch his side and see where the spear had pierced him.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this was a physical body that we hear later made fish, our cooked fish rather, and then ate food.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what we see in John's gospel is that Jesus' natural body was raised, I think there was nothing left in the tomb.
[SPEAKER_01]: His natural physical body was raised, but it was changed.
[SPEAKER_01]: His body was changed.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was now a glorified body incapable of being bound by death, recreated to live for eternity in the presence of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's physical, but it's eternal.
[SPEAKER_01]: So keep this in mind, because in a few moments, we're gonna see that this kind of resurrected body
[SPEAKER_01]: is what we are hoping for.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's our eternal state.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll see that in a couple passages in a moment, a physical body that is glorified to be an eternal body that cannot be bound by death.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we've seen that this is an eyewitness testimony that Jesus' resurrection is a new kind of resurrection.
[SPEAKER_01]: But finally, consider with me verse nine, verse nine.
[SPEAKER_01]: It says, for as yet, they did not understand the scripture that he must rise from the dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to close by asking this question and trying to answer it with a couple passages.
[SPEAKER_01]: The question, why must the Christ rise from the dead?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I have three suggestions for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Are three observations from scripture?
[SPEAKER_01]: First, it was to fill the promise of God, to fulfill the promise of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to read one passage, which gives you an idea of how the apostles look back at the Old Testament, which spoke of the Christ, a living, raining Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is just one example.
[SPEAKER_01]: So an Acts 2,
[SPEAKER_01]: Verse 22, if you want to turn it with me, it's a rather long passage, but I think it'll be extremely helpful.
[SPEAKER_01]: Acts 2, verse 22, this is Peter's confession.
[SPEAKER_01]: After the Holy Spirit has come upon the apostles, this is the first resurrection sermon.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Peter is preaching in Jerusalem in front of a crowd of Israelites.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, men of Israel hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst.
[SPEAKER_01]: As you yourselves know, this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and for knowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.
[SPEAKER_01]: God raised him up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Loosing the pains of death because it was not possible for him to be held by it.
[SPEAKER_01]: For David says concerning him, in his quoting Psalm 16, For David says concerning him, I saw the Lord always before me.
[SPEAKER_01]: For he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken.
[SPEAKER_01]: Therefore, my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced, my flesh also will dwell in hope, for you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your holy one seek corruption.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have made known to me the paths of life.
[SPEAKER_01]: You will make me full of gladness with your presence.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now Peter goes on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that
[SPEAKER_01]: being there for a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to give him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh seek corruption, this Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what is Peter doing here?
[SPEAKER_01]: How is he quoting the words of David in saying that David as a prophet spoke about, sought for sought and spoke about the Christ?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because when I read that passage in Psalm 16 verse 8 through 11, I'm thinking David's speaking about himself and surely many thought that as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: But as Peter is filled with the Holy Spirit, he can now look back at the Old Testament scriptures and see the true fulfillment of this.
[SPEAKER_01]: that when you read Psalm 16, it's speaking about Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's read this again.
[SPEAKER_01]: Psalm 16, 8 through 11.
[SPEAKER_01]: Reading it as Jesus speaking.
[SPEAKER_01]: I, Jesus, saw the Lord always before me for years at my right hand that I, Jesus may not be shaken.
[SPEAKER_01]: Therefore, my heart was glad and my tongue rejoice, my flesh also will dwell in hope for you will not abandon my soul to hate us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus or let my or let your holy one Jesus seek corruption.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have made known to me Jesus the path of life You will make me Jesus full of gladness with your presence Jesus will be at the right hand of his father living
[SPEAKER_01]: He is alive.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the testimony of Peter as he's filled with the Holy Spirit and preaches the first resurrection sermon.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is just one example in the Old Testament.
[SPEAKER_01]: As how you read the Old Testament, when you read the Old Testament, you see that the Christ, the Messiah, the promised one, the Savior, the Redeemer.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is not a dead Redeemer.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is a living.
[SPEAKER_01]: Breathing, living, raining, save your, that is the testimony of all of the Old Testament.
[SPEAKER_01]: My second observation for you is that the Christ must rise from the dead because if there is no resurrection, then there is no vindication of His words and of His promises and of His claims.
[SPEAKER_01]: Remember Jesus claimed several times that he would rise from the dead after three days.
[SPEAKER_01]: In Romans chapter 1 verse 1 through 4 we hear the testimony of Paul about how that the resurrection was required for the vindication of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: Paul says to the churches, Paul the servant of Christ Jesus,
[SPEAKER_01]: called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel or the good news of God, which he promised before him through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures concerning his son who is descended from David according to the flesh and get this in verse 4.
[SPEAKER_01]: And was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus Christ are Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now that is a lot of words, a lot of theology packed into four short little verses.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the main thing I want you to see here is that first this good news was promised by God through his prophets written in Scripture, which means the writings.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's talking about the Old Testament.
[SPEAKER_01]: This good news is promised about his son, God's son.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he would be descended from David.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the flesh says bodily, and then it says, and was declared, this is what happened.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was declared or proclaimed to be the Son of God in power through the Spirit, by His resurrection from the dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the Spirit is proclaiming
[SPEAKER_01]: The truth of Jesus Christ, that He truly is the son of God, the Christ, the Messiah, the promise king by raising Jesus from the dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is Christ Jesus' vindication before all humanity that God was with Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: His enemies, His opponents, they were wrong.
[SPEAKER_01]: They missed it.
[SPEAKER_01]: They crucified the Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is what the resurrection proclaims.
[SPEAKER_01]: That He is alive and He has ascended and is seated at the right hand of the Father to this day.
[SPEAKER_01]: The third observation that the Christ, about how the Christ must rise from the dead, is that if there is no resurrection, then there is no gospel.
[SPEAKER_01]: If there is no resurrection, then there is no good news for all of us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why do I say that?
[SPEAKER_01]: May point your attention to 1 Corinthians 15, 1 Corinthians 15, begin reading in verse 1.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is Paul's confession.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received
[SPEAKER_01]: and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preach to you, unless you believed in vain.
[SPEAKER_01]: For I delivered to you as a first importance, what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that He was raised on the third day in accordance
[SPEAKER_01]: Then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive those some have fallen asleep.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
[SPEAKER_01]: Last of all, as to one and timely born, he appeared also to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: For I am the least of the apostles and worthy to be called in a possible because I persecuted the Church of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: But by the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain.
[SPEAKER_01]: On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I. But the grace of God that is with me, that is with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believe, number 12.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's pause there just for a second, at first 12.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is highly foolish, is considered foolish to the Greek-speaking world that someone would bodily ray be raised from the dead or would rise from the dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's foolishness, we're told.
[SPEAKER_01]: So as the gospel went out into the known world, this is a massive stumbling block to belief, in a risen Messiah.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were fine with someone dying as a Messiah, or being a great hero, and we'll make a statue to him, and we'll worship the statue and make sacrifices to the statue.
[SPEAKER_01]: But don't tell us that there's a person who died as a Messiah, and then was raised bodily.
[SPEAKER_01]: and is still alive and head and bodily.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't try and convince me of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so this has been a constant problem in the Greek-speaking world in this first 100 years of the gospel going out.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know what?
[SPEAKER_01]: It is still a problem for many to this day that there was a bodily resurrection from the dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's why there are so many heresies out there today that says, well, and I won't even get into them.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're so ridiculous, some of them.
[SPEAKER_01]: But there's like, well, he just fainted.
[SPEAKER_01]: and they put him in the grave and he didn't actually die.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or he didn't actually raise it with the risen bodily, it was his spirit that went to heaven.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or there was a twin.
[SPEAKER_01]: And one of the twins died and then the other one came.
[SPEAKER_01]: When there is a difficulty that God claims, mankind is so slow to bow the knee.
[SPEAKER_01]: for the proclamation of God, saying, this is who I am, this is who you are, this is how I am reigning and ruling and saving you, believe, fall down and worship me, the God of God's.
[SPEAKER_01]: That has always been difficult for humanity and without God's spirit, it's impossible.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's impossible, unless God's spirit blows into the heart and grants repentance and faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: we will go on in rebellion.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yet Paul, here, is going to answer this specific problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was rising up in the church because some had crept in and said, there isn't actually going to be a resurrection of the dead for all of us.
[SPEAKER_01]: There isn't actually, we should just be content with dying and going to heaven and existing forever as spirits.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the false teaching that had crept in.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's keep going here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Verse 12, now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?
[SPEAKER_01]: How can you say that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because if you go as on a verse 13, but if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a true bodily resurrection.
[SPEAKER_01]: verse 14, and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.
[SPEAKER_01]: He sang the preaching of the gospel as a vanity, emptiness.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like that when you wake up in the morning on a cold morning and you breathe out, you just you can see
[SPEAKER_01]: and it's gone.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's emptiness.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's spoke awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't satisfy you.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's emptiness.
[SPEAKER_01]: Foolishness.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what vanity is.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's trying to live on a diet of spoke awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: Candy floss.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what he's saying here.
[SPEAKER_01]: If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain and your faith is vain.
[SPEAKER_01]: We, the apostles, are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is saying that Jesus Christ has set the template of our hope.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was the first fruits we're going to hear.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is the first Karakara orange that comes off of that orange tree.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it in the spring or in the winter?
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't quote me on that.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's that time in the year where there's that first orange orange gives me as a winter fruit.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's that first orange that comes off of that green tree.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you see that it is beautiful and bright and color.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're like, if I don't pull it today, it's probably going to fall off.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so heavy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you pull it off and you cut into it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in that car car, you see that pink flesh.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you eat it and you think to yourself, this is so beautiful, delightful.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that first fruit is a promise of what is to come, a bound to full harvest where that tree is just full of oranges.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what whenever the scripture speaks of the first fruit, you can think about that first car car that's going to come off of that orange tree.
[SPEAKER_01]: They might have had grapes in mind, the vineyards, they might have had the olive tree, they might have had wheat fields in mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: But for me, the car car recently, I'm so excited when those things are getting about
[SPEAKER_01]: When the Scripture speak of Christ being the first fruit, He is that beautiful taste of what's to come.
[SPEAKER_01]: For all of us, we are going to be that orange tree.
[SPEAKER_01]: That each one of us is an individual orange that's going to be laid in that tree of the saints of God, the saved of God, that He will gather to Himself.
[SPEAKER_01]: Christ is the first, and his body bodily resurrection is the first of many bodily resurrections that will happen on that day at the coming of Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's finish seeing what Paul says here about this resurrection.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, for if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised,
[SPEAKER_01]: Goes on of verse 17, a first Corinthians 15, verse 17.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: Church, the gospel is gone.
[SPEAKER_01]: If we mess with the resurrection and do not believe in it, if we say that if we should explain it away, verse 18, then those also have fallen asleep and Christ have perished.
[SPEAKER_01]: our dead loved ones.
[SPEAKER_01]: Have no, we have no hope for them, either.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those who died in Christ, if there's no resurrection, they're gone.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're gone.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll never see them again.
[SPEAKER_01]: Verse 19, if in Christ we have hope in this life only, if he is just a, have your best life now, Guru, for this life, a religious guru who's dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: Paul says, if that is true of Christ, we are of all people most to be pityed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Christian life is a miserable, pitiful life.
[SPEAKER_01]: If this is all, there is.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the testimony of Paul, first Corinthians, 15.
[SPEAKER_01]: Church, there is no resurrection for us and no heaven for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: The good news of Jesus Christ raised from the dead, who ascended to the Father, who asceded bodily at the right hand of the Father, and who is returning to raise our bodies in like manner.
[SPEAKER_01]: That gospel is garbage.
[SPEAKER_01]: Garbage.
[SPEAKER_01]: If Jesus did not rise from the dead, bodily.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is Paul's teaching to us this morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in conclusion, we see that Christ, the Christ, he must rise from the dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Old Testament promised that Jesus said that he would, in the apostles, confirmed it as I witness to the risen Christ, they saw him.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in conclusion, he must rise and I'd like to read to you Paul's conclusion in
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the him finishing his confession.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says in 1 Corinthians 15 verse 20, but in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's his confession.
[SPEAKER_01]: The first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.
[SPEAKER_01]: Remember, the first fruit he went before us, we will be raised like he was in like manner.
[SPEAKER_01]: For as by a man came death, he's speaking about Adam, through Adam came death.
[SPEAKER_01]: By a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: In Adam we die, but in Christ Jesus we will be raised.
[SPEAKER_01]: He goes on for it, for as an Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive, but each in his own order.
[SPEAKER_01]: Christ, the first fruits he went before us, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: At Christ's coming, which we're hoping for, we're longing for at his coming, those who belong to Christ will be raised.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is our hope, church.
[SPEAKER_01]: Please stop and think about this for a second.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are many things in this life we hope for.
[SPEAKER_01]: a wife or a husband?
[SPEAKER_01]: We hope maybe for children.
[SPEAKER_01]: We hope for a good job.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's some teenagers.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're probably hoping to pass exams, you know, a metric and all of this.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are many good hopes you hope for your wedding day.
[SPEAKER_01]: Many of the young ladies, I've heard that even as young ladies, some ladies plan out their wedding well before the time, there are many good things to hope for.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even hoping for retirement isn't a bad thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're hoping to have more time to serve the Lord and love other people, there are many good things to hope in.
[SPEAKER_01]: the hope for, but church, if those things are right here in our face, close to us, dear to our heart, we're clinging to them.
[SPEAKER_01]: My heart's wrapped around those things and my joy is wrapped up in those things, but the coming of Christ is often the distance, something far away.
[SPEAKER_01]: Something that it's going to happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe that, but it's out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: In church we are not living a pure, joy-filled Christian life.
[SPEAKER_01]: The coming of Christ must be here and overshadowing every other hope.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those other hopes should be miniscule in comparison to the Christian's hope of the living Savior with Ternu.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is our hope.
[SPEAKER_01]: Capital H.
[SPEAKER_01]: Christians and it should be in our faces every day that we are hoping for that the coming of Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well he will raise us whether we're in the grave or we're still walking around this earth we will rise and be giving glorified bodies forever be with the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: At His coming those who belong to Christ will be
[SPEAKER_01]: that when a Christian dies, their soul immediately goes to be with the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're told that the souls of the perished saints are with the Lord now.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is clearly taught and implied in Scripture.
[SPEAKER_01]: But ultimately, we are longing for the coming of Christ when He will raise our physical bodies.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the eternal state.
[SPEAKER_01]: that we live in.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what it means to be humanist to have a body, to have simply a soul that's or spirit floating around in heaven.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is not God's plan for us as human beings for the eternal state.
[SPEAKER_01]: His plan, His promise for us, is that we will live eternally in His presence
[SPEAKER_01]: It's first Thessalonians 416, where Paul again clarifies this hope capital H. First Thessalonians 416, for the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is our hope.
[SPEAKER_01]: for all the saints and loved ones and children that are in the grave right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: They will not be left behind.
[SPEAKER_01]: They will, their bodies will rise first.
[SPEAKER_01]: Their souls are already within.
[SPEAKER_01]: In heaven.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what is rising?
[SPEAKER_01]: The glorified body, physical resurrection.
[SPEAKER_01]: They will rise first.
[SPEAKER_01]: Number 17, then we who are alive, who are left, that's all of us right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: If the Lord to come back right now, he's talking about us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those who are left will be caught up together within the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we will always be with the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: Therefore, encourage one another with these words.
[SPEAKER_01]: Church, this is our hope.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are many human things we hope in and hope for.
[SPEAKER_01]: Please, if you have not been hoping in this daily or at least weekly, or this is on your mind, please consider these things carefully that this is actually
[SPEAKER_01]: our capital H hope for joy now and forever is that Christ is coming back and he is going to bodily raise us to be with him forever.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is our eternal state.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the promise of God is what we are longing for and looking for because a title and name of a Christian is
[SPEAKER_01]: Dearly, it is before our eyes, it is near to us, and our hearts are wrapped around it.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is what we are longing for.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's close and prayer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Heavenly Father, I have faith in your Word and your Spirit, that as fragile teachers proclaim it, that your Word is powerful and able
[SPEAKER_01]: is capable of piercing even to the heart of man.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so Lord, if anyone is here today and does not have hope of rising on that day to eternal life, I pray they will not leave here today without bowing the need to Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, confessing their sins, hoping in Him alone trusting in the Savior that God has provided.
[SPEAKER_01]: on this Pilgrim's path, the faith of Lord would you convict us if we are hoping in other things as our as the primary source of our joy, of our purpose, of what we hope for in the future.
[SPEAKER_01]: Please, Lord, bring what is necessary for us to see the Lord Jesus Christ coming as our greatest hope.
[SPEAKER_01]: That His coming is what we are longing for, Lord, knit our hearts to it, do what you must in our lives so that our hearts we knit to the coming of Lord Jesus Christ and that we will love His appearing, so that we will walk with you and we will experience and taste the eternal kinds of joy that you have for us now and forever in Jesus name.
[SPEAKER_01]: Amen.