Christ Performs the Work of Resurrection, Judgment

Just as a young football player's effectiveness depends on the suitability of his body to face 245-pound linemen, the success of redemption depends on the suitability of Christ's person to the work — only a true God-man can save.

is dependent upon the suitability of his person to the work of redemption. The success of the young man who would help his school in the first football game this fall is dependent not so much upon his being highly motivated, though that does enter in, but upon his ability to perform the functions of his assigned role. And if he's an offensive tackle, I don't care how much motivation he has, if he's 5'2", 103 pounds, there will not be much success for the poor running backs that try to go through the hole that he opens for them. It can't be done.

3:32 - 4:11 Read in full sermon

The point: Refuse mental laziness about Christ's person — it produces either unbelief or crippled Christian experience.

Pastor Martin tells the children that every tombstone is an eloquent declaration: 'Satan, you are a liar.' Death proves God told the truth in Eden — the wages of sin really is death.

Now, you don't need a revelation from God to know that man will die. Every time you kids are in a car with your mom and your daddy and you pass a graveyard, you know what I want you to say to yourself? I found it to be a great discipline for me through the years. Satan, you're a liar.

9:34 - 9:50 Read in full sermon

The point: Refuse mental laziness about Christ's person — it produces either unbelief or crippled Christian experience.

He reminds children that every person under the gravestones was once an infant in arms, then a child like them — universalizing death across every age and stage of life.

They were kids just like you. They were little infants like some of those in the arms of our parents whose diapers needed to be changed and who needed to be fed with bottles and Gerber's mushy food.

10:45 - 10:57 Read in full sermon

A three- or four-year-old boy locked into his father's sermon and mirrored every motion of the preacher's hands — a vivid picture of the Son doing only what He sees the Father doing.

They had several little ones, and one of the boys, he was only about three or four at the time, and he was really locked into the sermon. He was really listening. And his father told me a humorous instance that happened. I was describing something in which I was gathering different things together, and when I gathered them together, they were going to be right here, and then I was going to speak to them.

22:35 - 22:54 Read in full sermon

Driving home: You know what Christ needs to do to effect it? Just open His mouth and speak. That's it.

Pastor Martin recounts how the dead were eaten by beasts, consumed by sharks, blown to pieces on battlefields, burned on pyres, cremated — yet all will hear Christ's voice and come forth.

They were eaten by the beasts. They were consumed by sharks. They were blown to pieces upon battlefields. They were burned upon pyres.

30:21 - 30:31 Read in full sermon

Driving home: You know what Christ needs to do to effect it? Just open His mouth and speak. That's it.

If you cannot explain the continuity between the infinitesimal speck conceived in your mother's womb and the wrinkled, arthritic, bald man who goes to the grave, why stumble at the continuity between the buried body and the resurrection body?

My friend, can you explain the continuity between that which was conceived in your mother's womb as an infinitesimal speck and what your mother held in her arms? You were conceived in your mother's womb and it was you that your mother held in her arms what was the relationship between the two? What's the relationship between that little boy that was 20, 30, 40 years ago and the man that now is? Do you have the same cells?

30:46 - 31:16 Read in full sermon

Driving home: He who does that is no angel. He is no archangel Michael. He is God, the eternal Word.

Paul's 1 Corinthians 15 picture: you sow one seed and reap a plant bearing fruit — continuity yet transformation. The same body goes in and a glorified body comes forth.

It's not going to be a body created entirely new ex nihilo, out of nothing. There's some continuity. Now there's a great difference and Paul argues that in 1 Corinthians 15. He says you put a seed in the ground, what do you get out?

33:07 - 33:20 Read in full sermon