This morning I'd like to speak to you
from a portion that probably would not ordinarily
be used on the Resurrection, yet one which
I feel is a key to the Resurrection
and which should mean much to us.
It's Philippians 3.10, which probably is known
by many Christians and I'm sure that you've
either seen films on television this week or
you've heard messages this week on the actual
Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
And I, my heart is so thrilled when
I know how radiantly this touches the life
when we believe that Christ is risen from
the dead.
We have not one iota of doubt in
our hearts, for we can never doubt the
Resurrection and be saved.
It's impossible, because without the Resurrection, Christ's cross
means nothing.
So, it's so important that we understand that
without Christ's Resurrection from the dead, we have
nothing.
That Paul says, if Christ be not risen
from the dead, your faith is vain and
you are yet in your sins.
And so, when I read statements by men
talking of this Resurrection as though it's nothing,
it's always distressing.
And if I do have to say so,
much of the ministry today doesn't believe in
the Resurrection.
When a poll was taken of the seminaries
recently, and I might say that at present
paces in seminaries ten years from now, most
seminaries will be empty, including the fundamental seminaries
according to statistics.
That's how bad things are getting.
Very few young men have received the call
of God to preach the gospel.
It certainly would indicate the last days, there'll
be a falling away.
Shall the Son of Man find faith upon
the earth when he comes?
The answer is no.
But when we see the statistics, it shocks
us that so few believe in the Resurrection
that are in cemeteries.
Because they have thrown out the virgin birth,
I think only I read that just about
ten percent believe in the virgin birth.
Only two percent believe the Lord is coming
again.
This is in the largest seminaries in the
country.
And as far as the Resurrection goes, the
bodily resurrection of Christ I'm talking of now,
the number would be about twenty percent.
So, this is what the future holds.
And yet the Resurrection is the key foundation,
the cornerstone upon which everything is built in
the Church of Jesus Christ.
For without that resurrection, as Paul says, there
is nothing.
Your faith is vain.
In other words, if there's anyone here this
morning that doesn't believe in the bodily resurrection
of Jesus Christ, Paul says you don't have
anything.
You might as well forget it.
The Church is a colossal failure.
It has nothing to say.
Because if Christ be not risen, your faith
is vain.
You are yet in your sins.
Christ's resurrection put the seal of God upon
our salvation.
Without that, we have only a martyr, not
much greater than Lincoln.
I believe other men have suffered more than
Christ in their deaths.
But I know that they never suffered like
Christ with the weight of sin upon Him.
Physically, other men have suffered just as bad
as Jesus Christ in dying.
We could show torture deaths that have been
ten times more violent than Christ.
But the weight of man's sin was upon
Jesus Christ.
His suffering was because all men's sins were
placed upon Him.
Now, Philippians 3.10 speaks to us especially
about resurrection power.
Notice what it says.
Paul, of course, is speaking, that I may
know Him.
Oh, to know Christ.
That I may know Him and the power
of His resurrection.
The power of it.
The might of it.
The majesty of it.
Of His resurrection.
And the fellowship of His sufferings being made
conformable unto His death.
And so here we're told that to know
Him is the key.
Do you really know Christ this morning?
I want to be just as clear as
possible on this as I can be.
Do you really know Christ this morning in
your heart?
Are you positive of it?
Is the power of the resurrection really part
and parcel of you individually?
You can know very easily this morning whether
the power of the resurrection has descended upon
your life.
Because you will know that you have experienced
the new birth.
You have found Christ as your personal Savior.
You will know that the Holy Spirit has
come to dwell in your heart by faith.
You will know that your body is the
temple of the living God.
And you will know that the burning desire
of your heart is to please your Savior.
And your incursions into sin are dreadful falls
that break your heart.
But your life is not a sin for
life by habit.
A great change has taken place since Christ
came to dwell in your breast by faith.
And if I might say so in the
early church, one of our great problems today
is the way the early church developed, if
I might put it that way.
The early church developed in a peculiar fashion.
The resurrection was relegated to one day a
year.
The Easter season was only regarded in relationship
to the resurrection.
The resurrection power, although Paul wrote of it,
although the epistle spoke of it, although it
is mentioned in all of the gospel records,
and yet the resurrection was placed in a
minor position by the church of Jesus Christ.
The early church placed the crucifixion and the
crucifix at the top and the resurrection way
down at the bottom.
They separated the atonement of Jesus Christ from
the resurrection.
They made it so that Christian eyes were
glued upon a crucifix and the dead Christ
upon a cross.
And as the history of the church went
on, all it had to look back to
was the memory of a dead Christ, the
traditions of the fathers, the looking back and
in history knowing that two thousand years ago
or near that, Christ died upon a cross
and that this was the atonement for men's
sins.
And continually, mass after mass after mass, the
only function of the church was the sacrifice
of Jesus Christ.
For man's sins, nothing else.
Thus you hear of the dark ages.
Why do you think we have the dark
ages?
Simply because it was all the crucified and
dead Christ.
Nothing was mentioned about the power of a
new life.
Nothing was mentioned for hundreds of years about
individual believers being filled with the Holy Spirit.
Only certain men.
And if I were in that day, people
would have looked to me as being filled
with the Spirit and they outside looking to
me to bring them to God.
And so the whole history of the early
church was involved with the death of Jesus
Christ and tradition was handed down upon tradition
and the cross was looked at as the
center of all worship with a dead Christ
upon it.
And thus the trials and the burdens came
because the new life was not preached.
And if you were to read the history
of the church, you'll find very few books
ever written on the Christ life in the
early ages.
Here and there a man would stand out,
a Thomas Aquinas, or one here or there.
So brilliant were they and so different from
the men of their age that they had
to be placed in book and looked on
as unusual men because they spoke of the
living presence of Jesus Christ.
And so this was some special thing that
only could come upon certain men but not
upon the people of God, you see.
So that the resurrection power was lacking.
Notice Paul, that I might know Him and
what?
The power of His resurrection.
Paul says, I not only want to know
Him in salvation, I want to know Him
in resurrection power.
I want to know Him in all of
His fullness.
And so, beloved, from the early church and
the atmosphere of the early church, the atonement
became isolated from the resurrection completely and existed
by itself.
And Easter was a single day upon which
they thought of the resurrection of Christ with
no thought of the indwelling presence of Christ
in our breasts.
Even though Jesus said, I go away for
a specific purpose.
If I go not away, the Holy Spirit
shall not come to you.
But if I go away, I will send
you the Holy Spirit and He will come
in unto you and He will abide with
you forever.
This is the power of the resurrection.
Where do we see it manifested today?
Beloved, look at your individual lives.
Think of the power and the might of
the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
This living Savior, this living Lord coming to
dwell in your breasts by faith.
How much communion do you have in the
inner man with Jesus Christ?
Do you still look heavenward to find Jesus?
Jesus when He speaks.
And Paul when He speaks says, the word
is nigh thee even in thy mouth.
He has come to dwell within our breasts.
We do not have to carry or go
over a great myriad of miles to come
into the presence of Jesus.
But He has come to dwell in our
breasts by faith so that He says, what?
Do you not know that your body is
a temple of the Holy Ghost, who ye
are?
So that we have the Holy Ghost dwelling
in us, the Holy Spirit, and we can
turn inward to Him and have great communion
within our breasts with the Holy Spirit.
Should this not be the great power against
sin?
How will you win the battle against sin?
How will you win the battle against despondency?
How will you win the battle against frustration?
How will you win the battle against the
world?
How will you win any battle without Jesus
Christ dwelling in you?
For Jesus says, without me ye can do
how much?
Nothing.
And so the power of the resurrection is
to be manifest in us, the great indwelling
presence of Jesus Christ, when we have come,
as Paul says, that I might know Him.
Beloved, you cannot know the way to God
without Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ says, I am the way.
I am the truth.
I am the life.
You cannot know the way to God without
Jesus Christ.
It is impossible.
No moral system, no ethical culture.
If I might say, no sectarian group, no
church, no organization, not the Baptists, not the
Lutherans, not the Presbyterians, not the Romans, no
one.
Paul says that I might know Him, because
to know Jesus Christ, the right, is life
eternal.
And so this glorious faith we have in
Jesus Christ is not based upon the fact
that you are sitting in a Baptist church
this morning.
It is based upon the fact of the
Word of God, that God calls upon us
to know Christ the right, to really have
received Him into our hearts, just as Jesus
says, to as many as receive me.
To them I give the power to be
the sons of God.
This is He who came with power and
might to save our souls.
For He is able to save unto the
uttermost all that come unto God by Him.
And so, beloved, the early church caused the
great trials in the church as it grew.
From this beginning, this evolvement there developed in
the church then, a communion with Christ that
depended upon the memories of others, that's all.
It was passed down through history that Christ
died upon a cross.
I don't marvel that we hear God is
dead.
It's the fault of the church that we've
propounded such a gospel.
God is dead, because they see Him on
the cross.
And that's the whole answer.
The theologians who preach God is dead say,
God died in history two thousand years ago
on the cross.
That's the God is dead theology.
God is dead.
And the power of the resurrection was not
preached.
Just think how Christ's presence was exhibited.
Think of how Christ's presence was exhibited to
the people.
For instance, look at the Old Testament.
Here in the Old Testament, they were better
off than we are.
If Christ is not risen from the dead
and there's no power in the resurrection, much
better off than we are.
They had the actual presence of God in
the temple, the Shekinah glory.
We don't.
Why their high priest made one sacrifice once
a year for the sins of the people.
The only way the church could get evidence
that Christ was present in the congregation was
not because the people were sitting in the
church and were indwelt by the very presence
of Jesus Christ within their souls, but because
the red lamp was lit, which told them
that Christ was on the altar.
Even though God made it so clear in
Hebrews that the building which formerly was, which
had the presence of God, has been destroyed.
And now the building is our bodies.
And Christ comes into this church only when
you come in with Him in your hearts.
You will not find Christ here.
He's not here when this building is empty.
It's just a building.
Christ comes into this place when He comes
in, beloved, in your hearts because of that
faith that you have in His resurrection.
You know, when I read Paul in Romans
10, 9 and 10, how he says this,
if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the
Lord Jesus, notice, and believe in thy heart
that God has raised Him from the dead,
thou shalt be saved.
So somebody says immediately, ah, that's what I
believe.
So I don't have to believe in the
cross then.
But you see what God is saying is
this, once the heart has accepted Christ's physical
resurrection from the dead, you are acknowledging Him
as the Son of God.
For Paul says Jesus Christ was declared to
be the Son of God when He arose
from the dead.
And then alone, he says Jesus Christ was
not the Son of God because He claimed
a virgin birth or because of the death
on the cross of Calvary.
He was declared the Son of God when
He arose from the dead.
And since you have accepted that, that He
is God in flesh, then you will also
have to accept when He said, I give
my life as a ransom for your soul.
To as many as receive me, to them
I give the power to be the sons
of God.
Hebrews, He suffered death for every man that
He might bring us to God.
Oh, that we might sense the power of
the resurrection here this morning, that it might
come into every breast, every single one, young
and old, that you might really know Christ
in your heart as your personal Savior, that
you might recognize that there's only one possible
place to be cleansed from sin, and that's
at the cross of Jesus Christ.
For the Hebrew epistle says He tasted death
for every man that He might bring us
to God.
He is able to save unto the uttermost
all that come unto God by Him.
Christ Jesus came into the world to save
sinners.
And oh, my beloved friends, that you might
know Christ this morning, that I might know
who?
Him.
And the power of His resurrection.
What is the power behind that resurrection?
Listen to Paul.
I am not ashamed of the gospel of
Jesus Christ, for it is the power of
God unto salvation to everyone that believes, to
the Jew and to the Gentile.
Christ Jesus came into the world to save
sinners.
Paul says He broke down the wall of
partition between the Jew and the Gentile and
made one new man in Christ Jesus.
Resurrection power.
There is to be this tremendous power come
into our hearts.
Have you sensed it, beloved?
Are you really redeemed this morning?
Have you sensed the power of the resurrection?
Jesus' indwelling presence in your breast, moment by
moment by moment, giving you the power, giving
you the possibility of walking in this world
circumspectly because you trusted Jesus as your Savior
and He has come to dwell in you.
That I might know Him.
Not that I might know, beloved, anything else
but that.
Not that I might know religion.
Not that I might know some sectarian group.
Oh, how it breaks a preacher's heart who
preaches the gospel when I hear someone say,
who will come to me sometime and say
to me, we're Baptists, as though to say
this puts us right in heaven itself.
I have to say, beloved, there's never been
a Baptist who went to heaven because he
was a Baptist.
The only possibility of entrance is through the
blood of Jesus Christ.
For the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son,
cleanses us from all sin.
You can't know the way to God except
you come by Jesus Christ.
You can't come to the Father except you
come by Jesus Christ.
No man comes to the Father but by
Me, Jesus says.
You can't call God your Father until you
become a son.
And you can't be a son until you've
received His Son.
The most blessed and wonderful thing for us
to know is that we become sons of
God because His Holy Spirit comes to dwell
in us by faith.
And the great difference between the Old Testament
and the New Testament isn't that the Son
of God didn't exist in the Old Testament.
We have the pre-incarnate Christ in the
Old Testament speaking to the prophets, but He
was Spirit.
God is Spirit.
At His incarnation, He took upon Himself the
form of a man and was made lower
than the angels, it says, so that He
might suffer the death of the cross.
And the only difference in the Old and
the New Testament is they were saved by
the same method of salvation, by believing.
And the Word of God spoke to them
and Jesus was the Word.
In the New Testament, we have a completely
new dispensation of God because the man Christ
Jesus is raised from the dead.
I used to think when I first was
saved, I'd read that verse that says, God
is going to judge the secrets of all
men by this one man, Christ Jesus.
And in my heart, I used to always
substitute Lord.
I used to substitute in my mind the
Son of God.
But I realize now that I have a
glorified man in heaven, that He was made
like me.
But when He came and He rose from
the dead, He came back to His disciples
and they said, it's His Spirit.
And He said, no, it's not.
His Spirit has flesh and bones like ye
see me have.
I'm going to glorify you just like I'm
glorified.
Touch me and see, He says.
Give me fish to eat.
He's a man, glorified, Son of God and
Son of Man.
In the Old Testament, as Son of God,
He dealt with them.
In the New Testament, He comes as both
Son of God and Son of Man.
And as a man, He arises from the
dead, glorified.
Remember what the Scripture says in Hebrews?
By one offering, this man, notice that, this
man sanctified forever those that are saved.
In Hebrews, notice what He says.
He says, He looks at all of them
around Him and He says, I'm not ashamed
to call you my brethren.
Why?
Because He's the glorified man.
He's the first born of many brethren.
There is a man in glory.
God says in another place, I'm going to
judge the secrets of all men by this
one man, Christ Jesus.
And so there's a glorified man.
In the Old Testament, He had His essence
would deal with the hearts of men in
spiritual power.
In the New Testament, it's completely changed.
He arises as a man.
He has been formed like a man.
And He arises and sends His Holy Spirit
to us to assure us that the same
Spirit that raised up Christ from the dead
shall also raise your mortal bodies and fashion
them like unto the body of Jesus Christ.
Do you know the power of His resurrection?
Christian, I want to ask you something this
morning.
Do you really believe that?
Do you honestly believe in your heart that
the power of the resurrection involves the glorification
of your body, fashioned like unto the body
of Jesus Christ?
Because if you don't, you don't understand the
purpose of salvation.
If in this life only you have hope
in Christ, Paul says, you're miserable.
How terrible it would be to go through
this life and come down to the grave
and nothing.
He says, you're miserable.
But the thing is that this life is
the stepstone to heaven.
The Holy Spirit was given to us as
the guarantee, the seal of God, that one
day He's going to fulfill His will for
us.
And that is that we're going to be
His children, sons and daughters in glory forever
and ever with glorified bodies fashioned like unto
the body of Jesus Christ.
And Philippians tells us He will change this
vile body and fashion it like unto His
glorious body.
Now, this is faith in Christ as Savior.
And anything less is not faith, because you
do not believe in the resurrection of Christ
bodily.
And if you don't, you're lost.
I don't think anything could be clearer.
If Christ be not risen from the dead,
your faith is what?
Vain.
And you are yet in your sins.
Has the power of the resurrection descended upon
your heart this morning?
Have you sensed its dynamic?
Does it throb in your breast, my Christian
beloved friend?
Are you having victory over sin?
Is Christ living through you and breathing through
you?
It says, in Him we live and breathe
and have our being.
Is it Christ in you, your hope of
glory?
Is that power, tremendous power, dwelling in your
breast?
And are you walking about triumphantly Christian?
Paul says we always walk about in triumph,
for we are more than conquerors through Him
that loves us and gave Himself for our
sins.
Oh, the power of Christ!
Now, I pray this for everyone here this
morning, not that you just know the atonement.
Lots of people are happy about sins forgiven.
That's very nice.
But I want to tell you, unless the
resurrection power of Jesus Christ, Paul says, I
want to know Him, oh, that I might
know Him.
But I want to know the power of
His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings
being made conformable to His death.
I die directly, he says, to this world
of sin, because the victorious One, the vanquisher
of sin and death, is my Savior, my
Lord.
And He occupies His temple, and I've given
it to Him.
Oh, partake of it?
You know, some people have an idea, if
I partake of all this, I won't have
any fun.
Don't fool yourself.
I want to tell you something.
When Christ is victorious in your life as
the risen Savior, the power of His resurrection,
you'll have the deepest and holiest joy of
heart you ever knew in your life, and
you won't need the world and all of
its allurements and all of its attractions to
do one thing for you, because your eyes
will be so glued on Jesus and His
beauty, for He is the very beauty of
perfection, the Scripture says, that your affections will
be set on things above where Christ dwells,
and whatsoever things are pure and lovely and
of good report, these will be the things
that consume your heart.
Have you got it?
Depressed?
Frustrated?
Life's got you upset?
Well, let me tell you something.
Get to know Him.
Spend time with Him.
Not that one-minute prayer at night, God
bless us while we all go to sleep.
God bless the family.
God bless the world.
Just begin to talk to Jesus a little
bit, huh, about your heart and your burdens
and your needs, and when you begin to
do something, treat Him like He's alive, because
He is.
He's risen.
Thanks be unto God.
Let us pray.
Father, thank Thee for Thy blessed word this
morning, blessed to our hearts.
Lord, let us sense the power of the
resurrection.
We know how difficult it was.
It hasn't been easy.
Had to come all the way down to
the Reformation to break away into the power
of the resurrection.
Father, we pray that we may sense it
this morning.
It's been fading again.
History seems to repeat itself, and our nation
seems to be plunging headlong into a relationship
that is far off from God.
Now, Father, may the power of the resurrection
descend on this people, because you don't need
great numbers.
What you need are hearts, just like a
congregation like this, to really trust Christ as
their Savior, to really believe on Him with
all their hearts, and then to have that
power of the resurrection life reside within them,
that victory might be theirs.
We remember Paul says, thanks be unto God,
who giveth us the victory through our Lord
Jesus Christ.
For the law of the Spirit of life
in Christ Jesus has made me free from
the law of sin and the law of
death.
Father, we pray that that victory might be
the portion of each one here this morning.
May this Easter Sunday be a brand new
beginning for many hearts.
And if any have come in, anyone at
all, Lord, I'm not going to ask for
a show of hands, but possibly your heart
is saying, oh, I want Christ just as
this is spoken of this morning.
I want to know Him, and I want
to know the power of His resurrection.
Lord, I can't help but feel that every
single heart is saying, I want the power
of His resurrection if they're Christians, but there
may be some that have to first come
to know Him.
Lord, you touch their hearts right now by
thy Holy Spirit.
That they may truly know thee.
In Christ's name, amen.
All right, let us sing in closing, hymn
number 124.
Then you will notice after the benediction that
you will remain standing, and then our choir
will sing the Alleluia Chorus from Handel's Messiah,
and then silent prayer right after that, and
then you're dismissed.
Let's rise as we sing.
This precious morning we've had together, Lord, apply
thy word to our hearts.
Have we really sensed the power of Christ's
resurrection, His indwelling presence?
We pray that every heart this morning, as
they leave, might have but one prayer.
Lord, may thy power reside in me.
Give me victory in life, that when I
see thee face to face, thou mayest say
to me, well done, thou good and faithful
servant.
And as we wait for Christ coming again,
Lord, make us faithful in every way.
In Christ's precious name, amen.
Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia,
Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.