Is He Living or Did He Die? | Dr. David Jeremiah | 1 Corinthians 15

Put on the armor of salvation!:

Message Description:

Without the reality of the resurrection, Christians have no basis for hope. Let’s study the Resurrection Chapter of the Bible, discover the biblical facts about resurrection, and look forward to exciting future events.

For the first time in my life, I realized that the death of Christ is without meaning if there is no resurrection.
If Christ died and he did not come out of the grave, as he said he would, then his death is no better than the death of any martyr who ever lived before him after him.
The resurrection is the touchstone of the gospel.
It was the resurrection That was the message of the apostles after Jesus came out of the grave.
Paul was right, if Christ has not risen, we should be pitied.
We simply cannot overestimate the importance of Jesus resurrection If it didn’t happen, our lives are futile and meaningless, but look at the next verse in the text and rejoice with me.
But now, Christ is risen from the dead and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep,allelujah.
If someone were to ask you today, what is the gospel? What would you say?
Well, here’s your answer. I declare to you the gospel, said Paul, that which I also received, and here it is, that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures, that he was buried that he rose again the 3rd day according to the scriptures.
That is the gospel. That is the good news.
And Paul insisted that the resurrection of Jesus Christ be a part of that definition, it is pivotal to our lives.
In fact, the apostle said that if the resurrection isn’t a part of it, nothing that we do has any meaning in the next few verses of 1st Corinthians chapter 15 and verses 17 through 19, Paul says this, if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile.
That mean it’s meaningless. If Christ is not risen, you are still in your sins.
If Christ is not risen, all of those Christians who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
If Christ is not risen in this life, only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied.
I remember growing up in a Christian family and going to the church where my father preached, and he always preached on the resurrection on Easter.
And once in a while, he would preach on it at other times.
But I was a student in seminary in my 2nd semester as a freshman before I really came to grips with what the resurrection was all about.
I’ll never forget it. I went to a friendship dinner where Han Robinson was a speaker.
And he spoke on the resurrection, and I will never forget that message.
For the first time in my life, I realized that the death of Christ is without meaning if there is no resurrection.
If Christ died and he did not come out of the grave, as he said he would, then his death is no better than the death of any martyr who ever lived before him or after him.
The resurrection is the touchstone of the gospel.
It was the resurrection that was the message of the apostles after Jesus came out of the grave.
Paul was right. If Christ is not risen, we should be pitied We simply cannot overestimate the importance of Jesus resurrection.
If it didn’t happen, our lives are futile and meaningless, but look at the next verse in the text and rejoice with me.
But now, Christ is risen for the dead and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep, Pallelujah.
It isn’t a matter of did he rise it is a matter that he did, and now we rejoice in the fact that we know the risen Christ, and we understand the resurrection.
Now, don’t miss this. The Bible says that Jesus resurrection is not just about him, but it’s about us.
Today, I want you to consider some things we might never have known about Jesus.
And one of them is this that Jesus is the firstfruits of those who sleep.
And I want you to just hold your questions about that and let me explain that from the Old Testament.
In the Old Testament book of Leviticus, in the 23rd chapter, we have the background of the feast of the first fruit, That was a Jewish feast.
How many of you know that much of the truth of the new testament rests upon some understanding of the old testament So let me tell you a little bit about this feast.
Every year during harvest time, a Jewish person would go out into the harvest, and he would go out into the grain, and he would mark out a spot in the grain, and he would cut off a sheath of the harvest, and he would bring it back And he would give it to the priest and the priest would take, and he would wave that chief before the lord.
What was the meaning of that? Well, it was called the firstfruits.
It came out of the first part of the harvest.
And by waiving it before the lord, the priest was saying, this is the beginning of the harvest but the harvest hasn’t totally come yet.
This is the firstfruits. This is a promise there is more.
Now when Jesus says, He is the 1st fruits of those who sleep, and the word sleep there means death.
He is waving the resurrection of himself before the lord in saying, I’m the 1st fruits.
There’s more resurrections to come. It is so interesting to me that This puts these 2 things together because Jesus Christ came out of the grave.
We rejoice in his resurrection, but we don’t often realize that because he came out of the grave, that’s the promise that one day we shall come out of the grave.
He is the firstfruits. He is the first of the resurrections, and there’s more resurrections coming.
If you and I if we live and die before Jesus comes back, we will go in the grave.
Our spirit and soul will go to be with the lord, but our bodies will go in the grave.
And the Bible says one day, because Jesus came out of the grave victorious over death, our bodies will also be raised up.
How do we know that? Because Jesus was the firstfruits, and he’s the guarantee.
He’s the promise that there’s more resurrections coming.
That’s the 1st fruits of the resurrection, 1st Corinthians 15 20.
I want to talk with you next about the foundation of the resurrection. And this is in verses 2122.
And I’m not trying to get overly theological today.
I’m trying to help you grab hold of some truth in this passage that is some things about Jesus you may not know.
And I’m pretty sure there’s someone here today that did not know that Jesus was the firstfruits of all the resurrections to come.
Let me read this passage to you.
For since by man came death, By man also came the resurrection of the dead, for as in Adam Aldai, even so in Christ, all shall be made alive.
The Bible says, by one man, death came into this world.
Did you know that before Adam Sin there was no death?
If Adam had not sinned, everyone would have lived forever. There would have been no death.
But when Adam sinned, death was born.
And the tragedy that came into this world through Adam is death.
But the Bible says in the same verse that through another man, triumph came into the world.
And who was that man? That was Jesus Christ. And how did that come into the world through the resurrection?
Through one man came death through another man came life, if you have a Bible like mine, look down at the text, and you will notice that the second man in your text is capitalized.
Because that man by whom came the resurrection is the lord Jesus Christ.
Everyone who is in Adam dies, however, everyone who is in Christ, shall live.
Let me ask you this question this morning. Are you in Christ?
You say, How do I get in Christ? You get Christ in you?
You ask him to come and live in your hearts. You accept him as your savior.
The Bible says, if you’re just an Adam, you’re gonna die, but if you’re in Christ, you’re gonna live.
And there’s a little paradigm that I remembered from way back when it goes this.
If you’ve been born once, you have to die twice, but if you’ve been born twice, you only have to die once.
That’s a pretty good deal right there. You say, how does that work, Pastor?
Well, it works like this. If you’ve been born once and you haven’t been born again, you’re gonna die physically and you’re gonna die spiritually.
Physical death is the separation of the soul from the body.
Spiritual death is the separation from your soul from god forever. You don’t want the second death.
You don’t want that. The Bible says, you can avoid the second death being born twice.
You’ve already been born physically. Now get born spiritually. Let Jesus Christ come into your life.
And when you are born spiritually, You may die once physically, but you will never die spiritually.
So let me say it again. If you have been born once, you will die twice.
But if you have been born twice, you will only have to die once.
And some of you, some of us, I believe I’m gonna be one of them, I might not have to die at all because if Jesus comes back before I die, I don’t have to die no more at all.
How would you like to how would you like to escape at all?
How would it be if Jesus came back and none of us have to die at all?
Not physically, not spiritually. Hallelujah, even so come. Lord Jesus. Amen? Amen.
So you have the 1st fruits of the resurrection.
And then you have the foundation of the resurrection.
Now, this is gonna get a little complicated, but I think if you stay with me, we can get through this.
This is the future order of the resurrection.
Verse 23 says, but each one in his own order Christ the firstfruits afterward, those who are Christ at his coming.
Now, in the Bible, resurrection is a preeminent theme.
We have the resurrection of Christ, but there’s other resurrections, and I want to go through these with you so you understand them, and we don’t leave here ignorant.
Stage 1 is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. More than 2000 years ago, Christ was raised from the dead.
And that doesn’t mean he was the first one ever to overcome death.
Some people will say, no, pastor Jeremiah, he wasn’t the first.
There were people in the old testament who were resurrected, What about Lazarus and the widow’s son and Jairus’s daughter?
There were at least 10 events in which people rise from the dead in the Bible. That’s true.
But Christ’s resurrection was different from them all because whereas they rose to die again, Jesus rose to die no more.
And when he rose to live in the power of an endless life, he rose with a glorified body, so he is the first resurrection.
This is a wonderful reminder for all of us, that when we get to know the resurrected Jesus, we’re getting to know Jesus as he really is today.
We remember do we not, that we discovered one of the things we may not have known about Jesus that he’s in heaven in his body.
In his glorified resurrected body, he is in heaven, when we pray to him, he hears us not just through his spirit, but he hears us through his humanity.
He is in heaven. When we see him in heaven someday, he will show us the scars in his hands and the and the wound in his side, and probably where the thorns went on his head.
And Forever, whenever we see him throughout eternity, we’ll be reminded of the price that was paid for us to be in heaven with the lord Jesus.
The degree to which we neglect the resurrection is the degree to which we neglect to think about Jesus as he really is.
Jesus is in heaven in his resurrected body.
So stage 1 in the resurrection is the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
But how many of you know there’s another resurrection coming, and here’s how that works.
Let me just paint this picture. Here we are, folks. We’re living in the church age.
That’s where we are right now.
How many of you know the end of the church age is when Jesus comes back in the rapture?
He doesn’t come all the way back to the earth.
He comes the, and we go to meet him and socially ever be with the lord.
And the Bible says in 1st thessalonians chapter 4 that when Jesus comes back in the rapture, What will happen is those who have died already, those who are asleep in Jesus, they will hear the voice of the Archangel and the trumpet of god and the dead in Christ shall rise.
There’s the second resurrection, rise first.
The thessalonians were all concerned when they heard about all the good things that were going to happen in the future because their loved ones had already died and they were in the grave and they were saying, What about mom and dad?
What about grants and and grandma, what’s gonna happen to them? And Jesus said, don’t worry about that.
Paul wrote, he said, when Jesus comes back, there’s gonna be a shout, the voice of the Archangel, and when happens, the dead in Christ shall rise first.
That means that all of us who have loved ones who have already died as Christians, they will participate in stage 2 of the resurrections.
The next resurrection that is coming is the resurrection of all who have died in Christ during the church age during this time, as we await the return of Jesus Christ, resurrection number 2.
Somebody says why do they come first and some wags said, because they have 6 feet further to go.
I don’t know if that’s true or not. Right.
And the Bible says, that at the rapture, when this resurrection happens, we’re going to be caught up to be with the lord.
And listen to me now, On the way up, we’re gonna get our resurrection bodies, and our bodies are gonna be just like the body of the lord Jesus.
There are several passages in the new testament that talk about that. And I love what Paul said to Philippians.
He said, god is gonna trans form our lowly bodies so that it may be conformed to his glorious body.
Listen to me. Someday, we are going to have bodies by the lord, bodies of Jesus.
The Bible says that we know that when he is revealed, we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is.
One day, you and I are gonna have perfect bodies. Bodies like the lord Jesus Amen. Yeah.
That was kinda delayed, but, uh, I’ll take it. So here’s the first resurrection, Jesus Christ.
Here’s the second at the rapture. Now, what happens after the rapture, folks? A little less than in prophecy.
After the rapture, there’s a period of time called the tribulation, 7 years that’s going to happen on this earth.
Don’t get scared about this because if you’re a Christian, you ain’t gonna be here. You’re gonna be in heaven.
Well, because you’re gonna be raptured up before the tribulation, but on this earth, 7 years, all hell is gonna break out on Earth.
And some people say, Well, well, nobody’s going to get saved during the tribulation. That’s not true.
The Bible says that during that 7 year period of time, there’s going to be 100 44,000 Jewish evangelists set loose on this earth.
Can you imagine what will happen?
2 witnesses will will be teaching and preaching the word of god.
Here’s what you need to know.
During the tribulation period, there will be the greatest revival on this earth that has ever happened in the street of the world.
100 of 1000 of people will be saved during the tribulation period.
And many of those who are saved will pay for their salvation with their life. They will be martyred.
The Antichrist will take their lives. They will be starved out, they will die.
And the Bible says at the end of the tribulation, at the end of the 7 years, there’s going to be another resurrection.
Me read to you the scripture.
Daniel 12, there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was, since there was a nation, even to that time And at that time, your people shall be delivered, everyone who was found written in the book, and many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall await some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
A lot of people get saved in the tribulation. Many of them die.
They’re resurrected at the end of the tribulation. After the tribulation, there’s the millennium.
And the millennium is a 1000 years when Jesus is going to reign on this earth.
He’s going to be king of kings and lord of lords on as earth, he will have a reign of righteousness and peace.
No one who is unsaved will go into the millennium, but in the millennium, there’ll be many unsaved.
They’ll have children who don’t know the lord.
And at the end of that 1000 years, the final resurrection is like this, Everybody who is not saved, everyone who’s not a Christian will be raised up all at once.
And they will come before what the scripture calls a great white throne judgment, and they will give an account for their life.
There will be no Christians at the great white throne That’s the last resurrection.
Here’s how the scripture describes it.
And I saw the dead, small and great standing before god and books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life.
And the dead were judged according to their works by the things which were written in the books and the sea gave up the dead who were in it, and death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them, and they were judged each one according to his work.
There will be no saved people at that judgment.
Everybody who comes before that judgment will be will be sent to hell.
Because they have rejected Jesus Christ, but there will be this great resurrection at the end of the millennium.
You just heard me read it from the scripture.
And this helps us to understand what Jesus said, each in his own order, first Jesus, Then all the Christians who are alive when he comes, then all those who get saved during the tribulation, and then all of the unsaved of all of time are resurrected.
Somebody said, well, we just die, and that’s it. Or we die as dogs.
After you die, that’s it. You’re done. No, that’s not true. Listen to me here.
Everyone of us in this room is going to be alive somewhere forever.
We get to make the decision as to where that will be in this life alone.
You don’t get a do over.
You only go to heaven if you make the decision to go to heaven now.
You have to make your reservation now by putting your trust in Jesus Christ.
If you’re not a Christian, I hope that message is clear. What is the final result of this resurrection?
Here it is. And here’s what Paul says.
He says, when this is all done, when all we’ve been talking about is done, Jesus Christ is going to deliver up the kingdom to god the father, verse 2425, when he puts an end to all rule and all authority and power for he must rein until he has put all of his enemies under his foot.
He will deliver the kingdom.
Then the Bible says that when Jesus comes to the end of his time on this earth.
Death will be destroyed. 1526 in 1st Corinthians says the last enemy that will be destroyed is death.
Just as death came, because Adam sin, death will be destroyed And the Bible says that Jesus Christ is going to take this last enemy, this last enemy of death, and it will be forever destroyed.
I don’t know whether you like it or not.
I sure they don’t like it, but we’re overtly creative to think about death.
And the older we get, the more we do it.
Every time you have a little pain, is this the end?
Every time you forget something, you say, Oh my goodness. Is this the beginning?
And we think about it, don’t we?
And the Bible says that there are some people who go through life, and that’s all they think about.
The Bible says that they are held in the grip of bondage because of their fear of death.
And one of these days, our resurrected king is gonna wrap the chains of eternity and the strength of his glorious power around death, and he’s gonna throw death into the lake of fire, and death will be on, and we’ll never have to face it again.
In the Bible says in heaven, there will be no more dying, no more dying, I love that final truth.
Um, as a pastor, I have presided over death a lot in 50 years.
And, uh, I’ve buried my mother and my father and my sister, my, my brother-in-law, Donna’s brother, her mother and her father have been a lot death over the years.
And, uh, though we don’t fear death as believers, we don’t want to have it happen either.
I tell everybody I’m not afraid to die, but I don’t want to die.
Are you with me on that?
The wonderful truth of all of this men and women is that death is not the end.
And our lives can be a daily experience of sharing in the power of the risen Christ.
We do not have a dead savior. We have a living savior. He is not dead. He is living.
Scour the religions of our day, none of them have a living leader they go to the places where their bodies are interred, and there are monuments where they celebrate but we have a living savior.
The lord Jesus Christ. He’s living in our hearts. I talked to him this morning.
I bet you did too. He is a lie.
And if you don’t know him, you know, I can rave on and on about Jesus.
They’re not an hours in the day for me to tell you all the wonderful things about him, but here’s the most important thing.
He can take away from you the most awful thing you know about yourself and that’s the sense of guilt and wrongness.
When you accept Jesus Christ, He forgives you for everything you’ve ever done or will do.
He takes away that guilt, and he replaces it with peace and with a sense of his presence in your life.
Why would you not want to make that important decision today to put your trust in him.
If you have never taken the step to believe in Jesus Christ as your lord and savior, you can do that today.
If you will allow us, Doctor Jeremiah would like to send you 2 resources that will help you.
The first is a booklet called Your Greatest Turning Point, which will help you as you begin your relationship with Christ.
And the second is our monthly devotional magazine turning points to give you encouragement and inspiration throughout the year.
These resources are yours completely free when you contact Turning Point today.
Next time, on Turning Point. His name is not I was.
His name is I am. His name is not I will be. His name is I am.
As we’ve already learned in this series, the lord Jesus lives now in the eternal
Thank you for being with us today.
Join doctor Jeremiah next time for his message, is he passed, or is he present?
Here on Turning Point.