to the glory of God. Now I preach about the resurrection every single year at least once. And so over the years I've dealt with this subject in great detail. You may want to get a copy of those sermons to see some of the things that I'm not going to talk about this morning. But let me begin by saying that the literal, physical, and bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead is not only a fact of history. It is the core doctrine of Christianity. Without Jesus rising from the dead, we do not have Christianity. We may have some type of human philosophy or man-made religion. We may have some type of therapeutic moralism. We may have some kind of feel-good pop psychology. or even a modern rendition of Aesop's fables, but without the literal, physical, and bodily erection of Jesus Christ, we do not have biblical Christianity. I think this past week, two senators on the floor of the Senate I gave a speech in which they determined that a Bible believing Christian that believes in salvation through Jesus Christ is not fit to hold public office in the United States of America. One of those senators was Bernie Sanders who ran for president that everybody thought was the greatest thing since indoor plumbing and I can't remember the other guy's name but I'm sure he's a very important person. and yet he's denying the core of Christianity. This is why we send missionaries across the world. If you're offended by the concept that every religion on the face of the earth besides Christianity is a lie, you're not a very intelligent person. That is what Christianity has taught for 2,000 years. That's why we send missionaries to other countries. If we're all just one big happy family and all religions and human philosophies are the same, why do these people risk their lives every day? Why spend all this money and go to all this trouble to convert nations to Christianity if there's no difference? It's because there is a difference. The resurrection of Jesus is the culmination of everything He said and everything He did in His earthly ministry. And therefore, belief in it is mandatory for salvation. Those who deny the resurrection of Jesus are not saved. They are not born again. They are not Christians. They are not fellow believers. They have not been forgiven of their sins and they're not going to heaven. The Apostle Paul was crystal clear about salvation requiring firm and unshakable belief in the resurrection when he said this in Romans 10, verses 9 and 10, that if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For because with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. And he was equally clear about belief in the resurrection being attached to the forgiveness of sins when he said this in 1 Corinthians 15, 17b, If Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless, you are still in your sins. So let me tell you what this means. If Jesus did and said everything that the Bible says that He did and said, including die on the cross and yet did not rise from the dead, we are all still lost. All of the miracles, including the virgin birth, His sinless life, His perfect teaching, the fulfillment of all the Old Testament prophecies, His suffering and death would have all been absolutely worthless if Jesus did not rise from the dead. That is how important this issue is. Therefore, That's a legal term. Because everything I just said is true. Therefore, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, which is physically and medically and scientifically impossible, is an essential doctrine of the Christian church. It has been believed and taught and defended from the earliest days of Christianity. There are many, many thousands of saints who have died the martyr's death defending the doctrine of the resurrection. Therefore, it is prime. Without the resurrection, we are all just wasting our time. And that is why all of the New Testament writers confirmed that Jesus rose from the dead. The Apostle Levi wrote this in Matthew 28, verses 1-6, Now after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave. And behold, a severe earthquake had occurred, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it. And his appearance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow. The guards shook for fear of Him and became like dead men. The angel said to the woman, Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified. He is not here, for He has risen. Just as He said, Come, see the place where He was lying. John Mark wrote this in Mark 16, 1-7 when the Sabbath was over. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome brought spices so that they might come and anoint Him. Very early on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen. They were saying to one another, Who will roll away the stone for us? from the entrance of the tomb. Looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away, although it was extremely large. Entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting at the right wearing a white robe, and they were amazed. And he said to them, Do not be amazed. You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene who has been crucified. He has risen. He is not here. Behold, here is the place where they laid Him." Besides the passage that Brother Andy just read to you, that Dr. Luke wrote, here's what the Apostle John said in John 20, verses 1-9. Now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb while it was still dark and saw the stone already taken away from the tomb. So she ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved and said to them, they have taken away the Lord out of the tomb. We do not know where they have laid him. So Peter and the other disciple went forth and they were going to the tomb. The two were running together. And the other disciple ran ahead faster than Peter and came to the tomb first. And stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrapping lying there, but he did not go in. And so Simon Peter also came following him and entered the tomb. And he saw the linen wrappings lying there. And the facecloth which had been on his head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself." Twenty-thirty-seven years ago, at Ingalls Shipyard in Pascagoula, I was talking about that verse with a guy. And I was telling him that the Shroud of Turin was not Jesus. He said, oh, it is. It's scientifically all this stuff. I said, no, it's not Jesus. He said, how do you know? I said, because the Bible says that there was a napkin that covered Jesus' face that was separate from the cloth upon His body, and the napkin was put onto the side separate from the cloth that covered the rest of His body. He's a Roman Catholic. He said, that is the trouble with you evangelicals. You always believe what the Bible says. Hallelujah. Amen. Guilty. Praise the Lord. What does it say? And the face cloth which had been on his head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself. I believe that. So the other disciple who had first come to the tomb then also entered and he saw and believed. For as yet they did not understand the Scripture that he must rise again from the dead. And as we read the epistles, we see that the apostles also believed and faithfully taught that Jesus rose from the dead. Because the apostle Paul said this in 2 Timothy 2, verses 7 and 8, Consider what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything. Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descendant of David, according to my gospel. Here's what the Apostle Peter said in 1 Peter 1 verse 3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope. Aren't you glad He caused you to be born again? Hallelujah! Through what? Through what? through you making a decision for Jesus, through you taking the first step, and then God will take all, through you raising your hand and signing the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Hallelujah. Here's what the writer of Hebrews said in Hebrews 13, 20 and 21. Now the God of peace who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, who's He talking about? Even Jesus our Lord equipped you in every good thing to do His will working in us that which is pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Why do you do what is pleasing in His sight? Because He's working in you. Hallelujah. The belief in the physical and literal and bodily resurrection of Jesus was central to the Christian church from its very inception, as indicated in the very first sermon given at the very first prayer meeting by the Apostle Peter, when he said this in Acts 2, verses 22-24, men of Israel, listen to these words, Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with what? Miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst. Just as you yourselves know, this man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nail to a cross by the hands of godless men and put him to death. There you have the evil decisions and actions of evil men, and yet all of their evil actions are the predetermined plan and counsel of God. Huh? That is supposed to curl your hair. You're supposed to say, say what? You're supposed to say, that's not possible. That would violate human free will. And the answer is, you betcha! All day long and twice on Sunday. Look at 24. But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power. Hallelujah. So we, who are members of the covenant of peace church, believe and teach that Jesus literally, physically, and bodily rose from the dead for one very important reason. None of us were physically present when Jesus rose from the dead, so none of us are eyewitnesses to this event. But we believe the 66 books of the Holy Bible to be the Word of God. And the resurrection of Jesus is the clear and the repeated and the unmistakable proclamation of inspired, inerrant, and infallible Scripture. Or in Alabama English, it is what the Bible says. So regardless of how many people believe in the resurrection or don't, regardless of how many people will attempt to relegate the resurrection to be an inconsequential belief, regardless of how much opposition to the resurrection may come from many of the modern theological seminaries and sadly, from many pulpits in the American church, the Holy Bible declares the resurrection to be factually true. And that is why the resurrection is central to us individually as believers, and it is central to us collectively as members of this local body, and it is central to us universally as being part of the one, holy, universal, and apostolic church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, as far as I am concerned, the only thing that really matters is what the Bible actually says. Everything else is a distant second. But even as I pray that I have firmly established that the resurrection is wholly biblical in your mind, that is not the only tool that we have. Because as I told you last week, the Apostles' Creed was developed by the church to be a summary statement of core and essential biblical truths that was required to be understood and memorized and recited by new converts during the public affirmation of their faith at the waters of baptism. There is evidence to suggest that at least part of the Apostles' Creed was in regular use as early as A.D. 180. And so collectively, hundreds of millions of believers from then till now have recited this portion of the creed that says, on the third day He, Jesus, rose again. During the Council of Constantinople in 83-81, the Christian church revisited the issue of the resurrection and confirmed it to be entirely biblical, reissued another summary statement, which has become known as the Nicene Creed. Hundreds of millions of believers from all over the world for 1,658 years have recited this portion of that creed. He, Jesus, was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, suffered and was buried. The third day He rose again according to the Scriptures. Now the very core of the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century was a return to both the sufficiency and authority of sacred scripture. The formal cause of the Reformation was the issue of just who or what had final authority to bind the conscience. Now we're living in the 21st century and most Protestants have forgotten why we're called Protestants, sadly. Many more Romans understand why they're Romans than Protestants understand why we're Protestants. But I want you to know, we are not divided from Roman theology over things that don't matter. We are not divided because of personality squabbles, or because we just don't like the way they part their hair, or because they wear their collars backwards, or whatever. We're not divided by any of that stuff. We are divided because we don't agree how lost people get saved. That's a pretty important issue. And we don't agree with who has final authority in the church to what is called quote, bind the conscience, unquote. In other words, what has the power to bring conviction into your heart? If the leader of the church doesn't like lime jello, and he starts preaching that lime jello is dishonoring to God, and everybody in the church quits eating lime jello because he's the pastor, nobody in that church is following Jesus. They're following the pastor. And whatever his personal preferences are become doctrine. And if you don't think that happens all the time in Baptist and Pentecostal and full gospel churches with our eyes open and our Bibles open, it happens all the time. Depending on how persuasive the leaders of the church can be or how charismatic they are or how equipped they are to do special talks or whatever. So the issue in the 16th century of who can bind the conscience, who has final authority? What is the authority of Christianity? Is it the Pope in his office as the vicar of Christ? And I want you to understand, this is not coming from me. This is in their catechism. V-I-C-A-R. The Vicar of Christ. He is the visible, tangible, real representation of Jesus Christ on the earth. He is Jesus to you. And when He sits in the throne of St. Peter and speaks about matters of faith and morals, what He says is infallible. Now that's different from being inerrant. Infallible means he does not possess the ability to be wrong. That's called papal infallibility. That was the reigning doctrine of the day. Is that true? Or is the final authority in the Christian church the Scriptures? And so that's what this battle, this is called the formal cause, One was the formal cause. The formal cause of the Protestant Reformation was this issue. And those that God had raised up to rescue Christ's church developed another phrase that spoke to the primacy of Scripture. And everything important back then was written in Latin. And the Latin phrase was sola scriptura. It means from the Scriptures alone. Meaning the pope, the pastors, the elders, the church council, history, the president, the king, the ruling ministers of the land must bow their knees to the authority of Scripture. That the Bible holds primacy in the Christian church. Huh? And it is the fundamental principle of all genuine believers and all genuine churches. And that concept says that all church doctrine, all teaching, all counseling, all rebuke, all correction and edification must come from the Scriptures and from the Scriptures alone. Let's give you a perfect example. I had an elder in this church who's gone on to be with the Lord now. And we had a young man in the church that was lazy as the day is long. The man would not work to save his life. And he lived with these other boys that were in the church, and they were getting upset with him because he wouldn't get a job, he wouldn't share the rent, he wouldn't share the light bill, but he'd eat up all the electricity with video games all day long. So they came to me and said, can you help us with this young man? I said, sure. So I brought him in my office. Me and the other elder went in there. And I said, are you saved? Because nothing else matters. Are you saved? Yes, I'm saved. Okay. Then by Scripture, because you're saved, you want to live by Scripture, right? Right. Well, let me tell you what God says about laziness. God says He hates it. And I went through a little small Bible study about laziness and how it was a sin. And I called him to repentance. The other elder started talking about how his daddy raised him. and how hard work is honorable and that he'll be respected in the community and he'll get a better job and he'll make more money. And all of that is true. But none of that is the authority. So all counseling must come from the Scriptures and from the Scriptures alone. So theoretically then, all counseling is a mini Bible study. Because the authority by which you tell a husband to love his wife or the authority by which you tell a wife to submit to the authority of her husband, how can I compel people to do that? I can't. God can. And so what does God say about that? And that's what we do in counseling. So that's why this is important. Other than that, the only authority you have is the office that you hold and the ability you have to inflict punishment on people when they don't adhere to you. And that's not of God. As more and more man-made teaching that had been fabricated by the leaders of the visible church came to light, the Reformers took it upon themselves to re-examine every single core doctrine to make sure that those who had a protest with Rome, they were called the Protestants, believed that what they believed and taught was purely biblical. And the result of that effort was the development of a series of catechisms and confessions that began immediately after the Roman religious system excommunicated the reformers back in the 16th century and has lasted to this very day in this very church with the very man who speaks to you this morning. You need to know that I take time every single day to reexamine a portion of what we teach and what we say we believe in this church to assure that it is biblical. And I spend time with God earnestly praying as I tremble before Him, and I routinely beg God to help us to become biblical, and then secondly, to remain biblical. Because I know that unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain that build it. I am convinced that for anyone to be spiritual, for anyone to be classified as faithful, for anyone to lay claim that they love God, for anyone to think that they are actually serving God, for any of us to imagine that we are truly pleasing God means that we are constantly and consistently obeying the words of Jude who said that we are to contend earnestly for the Christian faith which was once for all handed down to the saints. Over the years, as the Reformers re-examined every single article of the Christian faith, their understanding of divine truth became more clear. At first, they were no doubt still radically influenced by what they had been taught their entire lives. But God was faithful. So as they continued to relentlessly strive to be biblical, they made some very important changes. For example, in God's timing, those seeking to adhere to the concept of sola scriptura went from allowing the heads of state, the king or queen of the nation, to be a ruling leader in the church, to upholding the concept that there must be a clear separation between church and state. As soon as the Reformers began, the king or the queen of the country was a leader in the church by default for no other reason than he was a king or a queen. As time went on and we became more biblical, we saw the fallacy of that. And we developed a separation between church and state. That's why I don't have an American flag anywhere on the grounds here. Never will. Not because I don't love my country. It's because this belongs to God, not the United States of America. And so we're not subject to the laws of man here. We're subject to the laws of God. And I mean that. And so when the laws of man change so that they will try to impose paganism or sin upon the church, this church, me, the leaders of it, will vocally and publicly break the law of man so that we can be faithful to the law of God. Hallelujah. And then suffer faithfully whatever persecution God allows us to go through. That's what that means. They also went from baptizing infants, in order to compete with the Romans for votes, to baptizing only believers. But what they did not change was what they taught and believed about the resurrection. From the Augsburg Confession, which was written by Martin Luther in 1530, to the London Confession of Faith, written in 1689, the Protestants maintain that Jesus physically, literally, and bodily rose from the dead on the third day. Now, in blatant disregard for everything I just said, there are some in the modern church who say that belief in the resurrection is somehow optional. As though some Christians believe in it, while others who are equally saved choose not to put any faith in a literal and physical resurrection. And those who choose not to believe in the resurrection condescendingly say that if believing in it somehow helps some, then by all means they should embrace it. If it helps you to believe in a resurrection, then by all means go ahead and believe in it. The arrogance of people is astounding sometimes. But then they go on to say very quickly that for them, believing in the resurrection is like believing in the virgin birth. and Jesus' deity, and miracles in general, to which I would say Amen. They are quick to point out that obviously the people who lived back then and who wrote the Bible were uneducated barbarians who were dazzled by magic tricks and thought that mental illness was demon possession. So resurrections to them are irrelevant and have no bearing on their salvation. There is no way in the world I can win by saying this, so let me be as clear as I can by saying this. Be careful, those of you in the 21st century, who are being sucked into the concept that your behavior and the behavior of people you know is somehow monitored by chemical imbalances and things of that nature, and that you can take a pill or get therapy, and that will make you better. That's true in about 5-10% of the cases. The rest of the cases, that's a lie. The Bible is true. We are accountable for God as to how we behave. And we will be held accountable by God for sinful behavior. And you can't take a pill to get yourself out of bad behavior. You need to repent from bad behavior. And I believe that with every fiber of my being because I believe the Bible to be true. So I reject almost all psychological and psychiatric attempts at explaining why people do what they do, what's wrong with them and how to fix them. I believe the Bible tells us what's wrong with people and the Bible tells us how to fix them. And I believe that salvation solves the problem. Hallelujah. I really do. Call me biblical. So to them, resurrections are irrelevant and have no bearing on their salvation. Now, I perfectly realize that this is the mindset of many who are unsaved. And that is understandable. Lost people do not trust in the veracity of sacred truths because they can't. But I have absolutely no tolerance for those who claim to be saved who espouse such blasphemy. And I do not hold people like that to be my brothers and sisters in Christ. And I do not recognize the authority of those in leadership positions who reject the clear teaching of Scripture about the resurrection. Rather, I call them to repentance. I am deeply and profoundly offended at the cavalier attitude that permeates the modern church about the issue of the resurrection as though we can take it or leave it. Many years ago, a man that I have an enormous amount of respect for, C.S. Lewis, put forth a statement that basically said, if I live my life believing in Christ and in the Bible and I die and find out that it wasn't true, then I will have lost nothing. But if you do not believe and die and find out it was true, you've lost everything. And I've heard that repeated a thousand times by people on TV and in churches and everything else. And I'll tell you the truth that I personally think that's one of the dumbest statements I've ever heard. And I think it uses the worst logic that anybody can ever use. And I think the Apostle Paul agrees with me. Because in 1 Corinthians 15 and 19, here's what the Apostle said, If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied. Christianity is the only religion in the world that says it is all or nothing. Christianity forces you to put everything on the line. I can't tell you how many people come to me and say, what are you going to do if you find out that's not true? I said, it is true. He said, what are you going to do if you find out it's not true? I said, it is true. It's true. It's in the Bible. It's true. Hallelujah. That's the end of the discussion. God's Word is true. Hallelujah. Every single word of Scripture is true or else I have no hope that any of them are true. Now here we go, biology teachers. If I can't believe what the Bible tells me about stuff I can look at, why would I believe it when it tells me about stuff I can't see? If I can't believe the Bible about creation, why would I believe the Bible about salvation? I'm going to need an amen on that. Praise the Lord. Amen. There was only one person present at creation. And it wasn't Richard Dawkins. It was God Almighty. Amen. And that's what he said. There's one record of creation. And it's not a biological record. It's not a geological record. It's a theological record. God said, let there be light. Bam! There was light. Four days before He made the sun. I'll start to say, go put that in your pipe and smoke it. Well, go ahead and do that too. That's what it says. And I'm not going to say, well, that's you. No, I'm staking the souls of my children on that. Because I raised my children to believe that. Hallelujah. Amen to that. Jesus was exactly who He said He was. Or I have no hope at all. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead was real, or above every other human on earth, believers are to be most pitied. And so before I baptize anybody, and before I allow anybody to be a member of this church, I ask them two questions. Do you believe that Jesus is God Almighty in human flesh? And do you believe that God raised Jesus from the dead? Because without those two elements, you're not saved. And I don't want to baptize lost people, and I don't want lost people to be members of the church. Now there are certain facts, and here, I done painted you in a corner when I asked you that. Because if you believe that, you've got to live that. how help me jesus now there are certain facts about the resurrection that all of the biblical writers affirm such as this jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week after the sabbath was over jesus's resurrection was literal physical and bodily not figurative spiritual are metaphysical jesus rose in the same body in which he died Jesus appeared to hundreds of people, many of whom were alive during the publication of the New Testament. Jesus appeared and disappeared repeatedly after his resurrection. See, I want to know, after he told Thomas to put his finger in the hole in his hand and put his hand in his side, and he disappeared, where did he go? I want to talk about that. Jesus spoke to the disciples and taught them for 40 days after His resurrection. So whatever else you may believe about the resurrection, you must believe those things. That's why we're here today on Sunday, is because that's when Jesus was risen from the dead. Now there are certain things that happened as a result of the resurrection of Jesus that did not occur earlier, such as the birth of the church and the propagation of the gospel. But one of the most startling things that happened as a direct result of Jesus rising from the dead was that the weak, vacillating, unreliable disciples became the strong, steadfast, dependable apostles. As a group, the 12 men that Jesus personally chose to be apostles were probably the single most unqualified men on earth to do what Jesus wanted them to do. If anyone should have failed in their mission, it should have been the apostles. But they did not fail. they succeeded greater than any one of them could have possibly imagined. And one of the greatest testimonies as to how wondrously God used these men is the fact that this church is honestly striving to teach and believe the very same doctrine that these men received from God and wrote down 2,000 years ago. What these men were commanded to do was not hard. It was humanly impossible. And the fact that we even have a church today proves they were truly uniquely called and uniquely empowered to carry out the office of apostle. They were to a man the most unlikely candidates to carry out the amazing task that only the apostles could do, such as receive the final full and completed revelation of God directly from heaven. Be moved along by God the Holy Spirit to inerrantly pin down that revelation into 27 books that we now call the New Testament. Confirm that this revelation was from God by performing signs and wonders and miracles through various gifts of the Holy Spirit. And correctly interpret the writings of the 39 Old Testament books. But all of that took place after the resurrection. Before the resurrection, these men were the most up one day and down the next group the world had ever seen. They were all over the map theologically. And right before Jesus' resurrection, they didn't even know if they were saved. But once the resurrection occurred, these same men became the most stable, strong, reliable, and steadfast men on earth. And to a man, even under extreme persecution, torture, and death, these men never altered from their confession. They had seen the Lord after His death. They had physically touched Him. They had listened to Him speak. And they had watched Him ascend into heaven. They were flaying Bartholomew alive with a knife that you use on fish. And they flayed his skin alive. Every time they said, deny the Lord. Deny the Lord and we'll stop. He said, I saw him. I talked to him. He's alive. Hallelujah. You've got to answer the question, why did these men suffer for something that they knew to be a lie? If they got together and concocted this plan, why are they willing to die over it? There was no money in Christianity back then. There was no popularity in Christianity back then. And to a man, they suffered. And they tried to kill John twice. It wasn't their fault. They boiled him and the man wouldn't die. And then they banished him to the isle to starve to death. And he didn't die. And he died an old man in Ephesus. Hallelujah. Now you've got to explain that. They said, I saw Him. In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God. The Word was God. The Word became flesh. And we beheld His glory. The glory is the only begotten of the Father. That which our hands have touched. That which our eyes have seen of the Word of life. Hallelujah. Now many people think that the concept of a resurrection in connection with God is a new covenant reality. But actually, the saints of the old covenant believed in a resurrection. For example, in Genesis 22, which is not very far into the Bible, we have the account of Abraham almost sacrificing his son. As you read that account, what you come away with is that as far as Abraham was concerned, he was absolutely going to sacrifice Isaac. But God sovereignly intervened and provided the needed sacrifice in Aram. That's all that Moses wrote. God did not reveal to Moses about Abraham's motives. But look at what the writer of Hebrews said about this in Hebrews 11, 17-19. By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promise was offering up his only begotten son. It was he to whom it was said, and Isaac your descendant shall be called. Listen to this. He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead. from which He also received Him back as a type." Here the writer of this epistle teaches that the reason that Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his own son was considered to be pleasing to God and was by faith was because he considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead from which He also received Him back as a type. So as far as Abraham was concerned, at the moment he was taking that knife to kill his son, he was going to kill his son. And he was going to die. And then God was going to somehow raise Isaac back up from the dead to fulfill the promise that God had given to him. Now remember, Isaac was the son in whom God Himself promised that Abraham's line would run. So Isaac was the gift that God gave Abraham and Sarah at an old age. So Isaac was the child of promise. And now God tells Abraham to sacrifice him? And the writer of Hebrews tells us that the reason Abraham was going to do this was because he believed in a physical resurrection. So not only did Abraham believe in a resurrection, but he also believed that the resurrection would reunite the dead body to the immortal soul that had been separated by death. And that means that Abraham did not believe, as so many do today, that the afterlife is some sort of mystical or ethereal or non-corporal new life. Biblical resurrection has to be life from the dead. Because Isaac would then have to pass on his genes to the next generation, and the next generation, and so on, or the promise of God would have been invalid. So in other words, by the 22nd chapter of Genesis, there was already some sort of notion of a physical resurrection and its possibility under the mighty hand of God that was grasped by Abraham right at the beginning of the covenant promises to the Messianic people. And then there is a very famous passage in Job that many people quote but hardly ever examine. Job 19, 25-27 says, As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will take His stand on the earth, even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God. Huh? Whom I myself shall behold, and whom my eyes will see, and not another, my heart faints within me." Look at verse 26 again. Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God. So Job did not believe that after his skin had been destroyed and that after his body had rotted in the grave, that he would see God in some spirit-to-spirit fashion. Job believed that after his skin is destroyed in the ground by death, yet from my flesh I shall see God. And the use of the word yet here indicates that he absolutely believed that his skin would rot in the ground by death, but that even though that was true, he would also see God from my flesh. So Job believed in a physical, literal, bodily resurrection. Now even though the book of Job was written many hundreds of years after he died, nevertheless, Job actually lived during the days of Abraham. And we need to remember that neither Job nor Abraham had any written books containing the word and the will of God. There was no written revelation of God at that time. So Abraham never read Genesis and Job never read Job. And yet both of them understood several important aspects about what happens to believers after they die. They believed they would live with God, live again with God. They also believed in a physical resurrection, and they believed that the resurrection involved a physical body. And it is that firm belief in a resurrection that compelled Abraham to be willing to kill his son and that compelled Job to say, I shall see God whom I myself shall behold and whom my eyes will see and not another. And this tells me that both of these Old Testament saints believed in a personal resurrection that contained a physical body. And they believed in it so strongly that they both acted on it. Later on, as the revelation of God began to flow to mankind, holy men were moved along by God, the Holy Spirit, to pin down passages that use resurrection language, but which in the first instance are not talking about physical resurrections, but about the restoration of the people of God after they've been swept away into captivity. The most famous one of these is Ezekiel 37, where the prophet has this vision of the valley of dry bones, and from this we see a perfect picture of two things. human inability to delight in God, absent a sovereign move of God, and the power of the preached Word. And in the vision, the bones are connected, but they are still not alive. The bones are connected, the flesh covers them, but they're still not alive until the Spirit of God comes upon them and they stand up as a mighty army in the valley of what was dry bones. But now, it's full of life. Now the context of Ezekiel 37 has to do with the restoration of the Jews back to Israel after they had been banished by God Himself in the exile. But even though it is talking about restoration, the imagery that the prophet used is of resurrection. In other words, those that say that the Old Testament saints didn't know anything about a resurrection overlook the fact that even though Ezekiel 37 is not explicitly talking about a resurrection, the imagery that is used to talk about the return from exile is resurrection language, which shows that the category is already there in Ezekiel's mind and in the minds of the people. And the same is also true of Isaiah chapters 24, 25, 26, and 27. And to some extent, chapter 56 as well. Those chapters in Isaiah are sometimes called the Apocalypse of Isaiah because it contains a lot of apocalyptic imagery. And in that context, Isaiah 26, 18, and 19 says this, We were pregnant. We writhed in labor. We gave birth, as it seems, only to wind. We could not accomplish deliverance for the earth, nor were inhabitants of the world born. Your dead will live, their corpse will rise. You who lie in the dust awake and shout for joy. For your due is as the due of the dawn and the earth will give birth to the departed spirits. Now I realize that the context here again is talking about the Jews returning from exile. Yet God chose to use terms that had to do with the resurrection from the dead and with bodies rising from their grave. And then there are certain miracles in the Old Testament, like the resurrection from the dead of the Shunammite widow's son in 2 Kings 4, 8-37. So even though resurrection is not common in the Old Testament, we must understand that the foundation to believe in it was clearly there. And then when you come to the New Testament, Jesus Himself raises a small number of people from the dead. The son of the widow of Nain in Luke 7. And then there's Lazarus. In Luke 11. Amazing account. And in that case, God gives us much information about the resurrection. Because Lazarus has been in the grave for four days. His body has already begun to decay. And that shows that you cannot confuse a resurrection from the dead with someone who has gone into a heart fibrillation and is not really dead. There was a physical decomposition that had already taken place in Lazarus. So in his case, not only did life enter back into Lazarus, but a restoration of his flesh also occurred. And that is the context in which Martha confesses her orthodox faith in Jesus when she said this in John 11, 21 and 22, Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. So she's rebuking the Lord for taking so long to answer her prayers. Aren't you glad we don't do stuff like that? We understand perfectly why God tarries and doesn't answer our prayers when we're asking something when it's really, really serious and important. And it sounds like our prayers don't go any higher than the ceiling. We've got that down pat now. Aren't you glad? So she's fussing about a healing, a miracle of healing, right? If you'd have been here, he never would have died to begin with. Look at 22. Even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you. I know you can raise Him from the dead even now. She already believed that. So Martha somehow understood not only did Jesus have the power to heal her brother who had been sick, but even though her brother was dead, Jesus had the ability to raise him back up. And so Jesus told her what she already knew. Your brother will rise again. And Martha's response shows that she did have belief in a physical resurrection. I know that He will rise again in the resurrection on the last day. She had that down pat. Right? I got that, Jesus. I went to Sunday school. I got my 25-year pen. But then Jesus tells her something about the resurrection she doesn't know. and the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live even if he dies. And everyone who lives and believes in Me never dies. Do you believe this?" In other words, the resurrection is a person. Jesus Christ, and not merely an event that will happen at some point in the future. And Martha's response to that radical theology was somewhat tame when she said, yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, even He who comes into the world. You know, we fall back on those catch-all phrases when we get put on the spot. Huh? So that's why I quit asking people, are you saved? Because I never met anybody in Gulfport that told me they were lost. Everybody in Gulfport say, yeah, I'm saved, I'm saved, I'm saved. So I say stuff like, do you delight in the Lord? Huh? Is your hope in Jesus? Is he your treasure? They go, huh? Now, she answered not quite what Jesus asked her. But evidently, even though she may not have completely grasped the fact that Jesus Himself is the resurrection, Martha fell back on what she knew to be true and what had saved her soul. I have believed that You are the Christ, the Son of God. Amen. Thank you, Jesus. That's great. But notice that Jesus went way beyond asking her if she believed in a physical resurrection at some point in the future. Obviously she did. But the Lord pressed Martha to grasp a far deeper truth about the resurrection that she had not contemplated before. I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live even if he dies and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. And then he put Martha on the spot and said, do you believe this? And Martha's response to that question prompted her to just walk off and leave Jesus standing in the road. And she went into the house and told her sister Mary, the teacher is here and he calls for you. Jesus didn't ask her to go get Mary. Jesus asked Martha if she believed that he was the resurrection and the life, and that if anyone believed in him, they would never die. And instead of answering, Martha just walked off and told Mary that Jesus wanted her. Now, I'm not trying to put down on Martha at all. I don't know what I would have done either. But seriously, you just walk off? You don't even say, hang on just a minute and I'll be right back? And it could have been something benign, or it could have been, I know you ain't talking to me about this, let me go get Martha, she's a better theologian. I mean, something happened. This happened to Jesus all the time. It's one of the things I've gotten out of our journey through Luke. This must have happened 25 times to Jesus. People just walk off. They don't even say bye. They don't say, you dirty dog, I hate you. They just walk off. And one time, 70 disciples just walked off. And Jesus looked at Peter and said, are you going too? And Peter said, I've got nowhere to go! You've got the words of eternal life. And that's a good thing, other than maybe if there was somebody else to go to, maybe he'd have left too. But I'm just saying, this is incredible, isn't it? So, was Martha just overwhelmed by what Jesus told her? Maybe. Or maybe she thought that Mary would be more able to answer a question. But in any case, the statement by Jesus that He Himself is the resurrection and the life went unanswered because Mary went out there and she started fussing at Jesus too. But what is clear to us now is that Jesus is the very center of everything. So it is not true to suggest that there is a resurrection on the last day apart from Jesus. There isn't. Jesus is the one who makes resurrection possible. And outside of Him, there is no resurrection. And that truth is finally demonstrated in the spectacular display of His own resurrection. So those souls who refuse to repent and put their trust in Jesus will nevertheless be raised by Jesus to be reunited with an immortal body to suffer the unquenchable torment of the lake of fire forever. While those souls who were gifted by God to repent and empowered by God to believe will be raised by Jesus to be reunited with a glorious body to spend all of eternity in God's presence marveling at His grace. So in some sense, the resurrection of Jesus is like the other resurrections in the Bible in that the dead will live again. But in another more important sense, the resurrection of Jesus is unique and stands alone and is unlike anyone else. And because the resurrection of Jesus is unique, Lazarus was not the ultimate prototype of the resurrection. And neither was the Shunammite son. Because when Jesus came back from the dead, there was a connection between His old body, that is His pre-death body, and His resurrection body. In other words, Jesus was raised in the very same body that He died in. And the marks of the wounds of His incredible suffering and death are still there. So in addition to the marks that every crucified person had on his body, like nail prints in the hands and feet, Jesus also had the highly unusual mark of a spear thrust up under his ribcage to pierce his side. So the resurrected body of Jesus that the disciples see contains those unique marks. And that is one of the main points that the Apostle John was making in John 20. And this tells us something about Jesus that is not true about us. Our souls have been forgiven and redeemed, but our bodies are still under the curse of Adam. And so our souls will go to heaven, and in the resurrection, our souls will be united with a new glorious body. But our flesh can't make the trip. Because our flesh is still sinful and will die and decay in the ground. But Jesus never sinned in His flesh. And in His flesh, Jesus perfectly obeyed His Father. He was in perfect submission to His Father. He was perfectly led by God the Holy Spirit without flaw or weakness. And in His flesh, Jesus only did with the will of God. And so His flesh was not cursed. And so even though Jesus died to pay for the sins of all of God's elect, Jesus' body did not decay in the ground, but was resurrected with His immortal soul. So as He was raised from the dead, Jesus did things that He never did before. For example, He just suddenly appeared in a locked room and spoke to the disciples. But then He just vanished. He didn't stay. And this tells us that after His resurrection, Jesus existed in some sort of other dimension. And exactly what all that means, we don't know. But we do know that in the resurrected state, Jesus had a physical body. Because He told Thomas in John 20, 27, Reach here with your finger and see My hands, and reach here your hand and put it into My side, and do not be unbelieving, but believing. And Dr. Luke gave us this amazing account in Luke 24. While they were telling these things, He Himself stood in their midst and said to them, Peace be to you. You know why He said that? Because they were terrified. You know why the angel always said, Be not afraid? Because they were always afraid. Right. So we always do what God tells us not to do. He said, don't think some strange thing has come upon you when you fall into divers temptations. And so we fall into divers temptations and we think some strange thing has come upon us. Yeah. You know, that's being a human, isn't it? Yeah. And so He said, peace be to you. Because they're going, golly! I don't do as good as Sister Charlotte does. But they were startled and frightened and thought they were seeing a spirit. Look what he said. And he said, why are you troubled? I have no idea why you're troubled. Give me a break. And why do doubts arise in your hearts? Because we have never seen anything like that before, Jesus. That's why. But nobody says anything because they're too holy. See, I ought to have said something. And Blair doubted. That's what that would have said if Blair would have been there. See my hands and my feet that it is I myself. Touch me and see. Look, look. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have. What? Look at this. And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. Now, you talk about radical theology. Their minds are turning 100 miles an hour. while they still could not believe it. Why? Because of their joy and amazement. He said to them, have you anything here to eat? And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish and he took it and ate it before them. He's not a ghost. Aha. But our flesh has always been a problem and will always be a problem. When we were lost, our unconverted soul united with our fallen nature and our cursed flesh to produce sin on top of sin, rebellion on top of rebellion, and blasphemy on top of blasphemy. And that is why Moses wrote this in Genesis 6 verse 5, Then the Lord saw the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. So before we were saved, when we were lost and fallen, our condition was that we were all evil all the time. There was no capacity for good in us at all. None. Ever. So what it means to be fallen is not that everybody is as bad as they could be. There's always room for us to be worse and to do worse things. What you're seeing in America right now is the judgment of abandonment. See, the reason that people are stopped in their wickedness, the reason people have a change of mind or a change of heart when they go out to go kill somebody or they go out to go rape somebody or they go out to go murder or tear something up, they have a change of mind. Something happens and stops them. That is God sovereignly, providentially interfering in their lives to stop them from committing the evil that is in their heart to do. God does that 10,000 times a day with 40 million people a day. All the time. God is doing right now 83,753 things right now and we see three of them. and the rest are unseen by us. But God is constantly moving and pushing and pulling and causing and allowing all the time so that His will will come to pass. The judgment of abandonment is when God stops stopping people. When God no longer restrains the wickedness that's in their mind. And as you're seeing, the first thing that happens is sexual perversity becomes rampant and it becomes normalized, and then you get in trouble if you say it's wrong. Huh? Romans 1, go look it up. And so God takes His hand off the nation and allows men to do whatever is in their heart to do. So, there is no floor to how deeply we can sink into depravity. We can always be worse than what we are, and we're seeing examples of that. However, there is a ceiling to how high we can go in and of ourselves without God sovereignly equipping us to reach the heavens. So, we need God to be saved, but we can sin all by ourselves. Amen to that. What it means to be lost and fallen is that there was absolutely nothing in us that would ever allow us to love God or the things of God. Nothing is inside of lost people that we could capitalize on or lean on or depend on or trust in or use that would in any way allow us to ever choose God or decide for God or even love or want God. So as far as God and the things of God are concerned, lost and fallen people are stone cold dead. And in that state, we normally and naturally love sin and self. And so all of our choices are predicated on those fallen and sinful loves. The amazing miracle of the new birth is that God sovereignly removes that fallen nature from us and replaces it with a nature that normally and naturally loves God and the things of God. And so our souls are redeemed and we have a new divine nature, but our flesh remains fallen and unconverted. And so even now, Our problems with sin, as saved people, lie in our unconverted flesh, periodically uniting with the pagan world system and the devil and warring against our saved souls. So it is not true, as some claim, that we have two natures inside of us that are in constant struggle. The Bible does not teach that. We have either a fallen nature or one that has been born again and is after the divine. And so a human is either born from above or he is yet in his sins. He has either experienced the miracle of the new birth or he hasn't. And if he has been born again, his nature has been radically transformed until it is no longer the same. And that is what the Apostle Paul was talking about when he said in 2 Corinthians 5.17, Therefore, if any was in Christ, he is a new creature, a new creation. were not improved versions of the old man. Were brand new creations. And that is why the old things passed away and behold, new things have come. So in the resurrection, our redeemed souls will be reunited with a new and glorious body that has never known sin. And that means that it is not, it is not our ultimate hope. to simply be with Christ in an immaterial existence. Our ultimate hope is to have resurrected, glorified bodies. So we have to know that there is a lot of emphasis on the demonstration of who Jesus really is, the promised one of God, the eternal son of God, the one who is Lord of all. And all of that emphasis is grounded in the historical witness of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The cumulative evidence that this New Testament of ours, which speaks so powerfully and frequently of the resurrection of Christ, is true. is not the result of hallucination or some conspiracy by early Christians. The cumulative evidence is very, very strong indeed. Those early Christians were prepared to die for what they had seen. And their constant confession was, we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard. And the result was that they considered it to be a privilege to not only suffer for this Christ who suffered so much for them, but to die as well. That is not the actions of people who talk themselves into it. All the records show how slow and low they were to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead. But they eventually came to see that if Jesus has indeed risen from the dead, then He is approved by God. He is vindicated by God. His death was not to pay for His own sin or else He would be dead. No, He paid for the sins of others. And His sacrifice was so acceptable in God's own plan that the vindication is demonstrated in a literal, physical, and bodily resurrection. And that establishes Jesus now as the reigning Lord. Hallelujah. So today, because of the resurrection, all of God's sovereignty is mediated through Jesus Christ. Everyone who desires forgiveness and salvation must come to Jesus. Because there is salvation in no other, there is no other name under heaven given by which we must be saved. Amen. Let's pray.