Joseph's Empty Tomb: Three Crucial Questions, Part 2

Introduction: Recapping the First Two Questions and Introducing the Third

0:00 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday evening, April 15th, 2001, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey.

0:10 Now will you turn with me, please, to a passage from which I read this morning, and I will read further into the chapter this evening, 1 Corinthians chapter 15.

0:22 1 Corinthians chapter 15, and I shall read verses 12 through 28. In the opening verses, Paul reminds the Corinthians that the gospel which he preached was a gospel that had as its two great pillars Christ dying for sin, as the scriptures had predicted, and Christ being raised from the dead, according to the scriptures, and Christ being seen. Now verse 12.

0:59 1 Corinthians chapter 15, and I shall read further into the chapter this evening, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. If so be that the dead are not raised, for if the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised.

1:39 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain, you are yet in your sins. Then they also that are fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have only hoped in Christ in this life, we are of all men most pitiable. But now has Christ been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of them that are asleep.

2:08 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order, Christ the firstfruits, then they that are Christ, shall be raised from the dead, the firstfruits, then they that are Christ, at his coming, then comes the end, when he shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when he shall have abolished all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign till he has put all his enemies under his feet.

2:49 The last enemy that shall be abolished is death. For he put all things in subjection under his feet. But when he saith, all things are put in subjection, it is evident that he is accepted who did subject all things unto him. And when all things have been subjected unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subjected to him that did subject all things unto him, that God may be all in all.

3:21 Now let us again pray and ask the help of God's Holy Spirit as we come to the consideration of his word together. Let us pray.

3:35 Our Father, we have sung together sobering and yet glorious truths based upon your holy word. And as we seek to bring near that day when the trump shall sound, the voice of the archangel will speak, and the clouds will part, and our glorified Savior will come. Oh, how we pray that at his coming, we shall be found, we shall be found in that company whom he will take to himself, and not among those whom he will banish to everlasting burnings.

4:14 Help us, our Father, to hear your word as those who must confront him at his coming, that we may confront him with joy and not with eternal grief and sadness. Bless then the ministry of your word, we plead, for our good, and for your glory through Christ our Lord. Amen. Amen.

4:42 Now those of you who were here this morning will know that in the ministry of the word this morning, I began to consider some of the biblical teaching concerning the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ under the title of three crucial questions related to Joseph's empty tomb. And we had time to take up two of those three questions, question number one was this, what does the Bible mean when it says that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead? Not what significance do men place upon that affirmation,

5:22 but what does the Bible tell us concerning its own affirmation that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead? And I suggested that it's helpful to look at the Bible's answer to that question, in terms of three strands of very well-established facts set before us in the scripture, that Jesus of Nazareth died a real physical death, that his dead body was prepared for burial and placed in an unused tomb, and thirdly, that that body reunited with his spirit was actually raised from the state of death and left the tomb. So when the scripture says,

6:06 Christ was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, this, all this, nothing less than this, the Bible is affirming. And then we considered a second question, what importance does the Bible place on this fact of the bodily resurrection? Not what importance do we place on a notion of resurrection, what importance does the Bible place upon this fact of the bodily resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth? And I sought in a broad survey of the whole New Testament to demonstrate that this fact of the bodily resurrection

6:49 is at the very heart of the message of God's saving mercy to hell-deserving sinners. We saw that this fact is a capstone in all four gospel records. We saw that the fact of the resurrection is the crowning affirmation in the record of apostolic preaching, and that this fact is assumed in all of the apostolic letters to the young churches. Now tonight we take up the third and final question in our meditations on the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the question is this, what answers does the resurrection of Jesus give to the ultimate questions of life?

Defining Life's Ultimate Questions

7:32 What answers does the resurrection of Jesus give to the ultimate questions of life? Now what do I mean by the ultimate questions of life? Well I'm simply using that terminology to try to categorize the kinds of questions you and I ask when we're lying on our beds at night and of necessity our hands are not occupied with busyness, our minds not occupied with other things, and the great questions begin to press in upon our consciousness. What is life all about?

8:13 In the language of Job 14, 14, if a man dies, shall he live again? Although he asked it with a tinge of cynicism the question of Pilate in John 18, 38, what is truth? What is life all about? What am I living for?

8:30 Is this life all there is? Or it may be, the question that is haunting us is the very question that that jailer asked who seeing the power of God and hearing something of the gospel of God's grace from the servants of God imprisoned there at Philippi cried out, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? You see the ultimate questions are not did she or did he notice me at school today? Or what shall I wear when I go to this event or that event or what car shall we buy when our bucket of bolts is wearing out and needs to be traded in?

9:10 Those may be questions of immediate concern at any given point in our lives but surely they don't fit the class of ultimate questions. The ultimate questions have to deal with eternal issues. What are we here for? If indeed there is a God, how can I know Him?

9:28 And if I'm not right with Him, how can I be made right with Him? These are life's ultimate questions. And try as you may, I don't care if the most hardened sinner is here tonight, you cannot totally subdue those ultimate questions. Given the slightest chance, they will press in upon you because you know in your heart of hearts you are something of a different order from your cat that lives and meows and licks your leg and rubs against you and dies and is buried.

10:01 You know you're something more of a wholly different order than the cat, than your dog, than the cow in the pasture. Something of what you are as image of God in all the dignity and nobility of that identity is yet within you. It has not been obliterated and so smashed that you can persuade yourself you're just an animal of a higher order. Try as you may, you cannot any more than you can unhuman yourself.

10:32 You cannot shake. The pressure of those ultimate questions. And I want us to stand by Joseph's empty tomb and listen to those questions and be honest with them and then put an ear to that tomb to hear its answers to some of the ultimate questions of life. We're going to look, as time permits, at four such questions.

Question 1: Can My Sins Be Justly Pardoned and Righteously Accepted?

10:58 Question number one. Can my sins be justly pardoned and can I righteously be accepted before the God of heaven and earth? Can my sins be justly pardoned and can I be righteously accepted before the God of heaven and earth? You see, once you begin to stop fighting with your conscience, that little moral monitor within that is constantly reminding you that your actions have moral quality to them.

11:35 They are either right or they are wrong. They are either pleasing to God or displeasing to God. And in the language of Romans 2, you cannot avoid the accusing or the excusing voice of conscience. Paul teaches in that passage that even among those who have no written revelation of God's mind and will in the scriptures, who have heard nothing of Jesus Christ in the incarnation and his death upon the cross and his resurrection, conscience functions within them, accusing or excusing.

12:10 And that's true of you. And when you begin to take seriously the voice of conscience and then bring the voice of conscience to the light of scripture so that its voice becomes more and more adjusted to the notes of scripture, and you begin to evaluate your life in the light of conscience, standing under the light of God, God's law, and you begin to sense that your greatest problem is not this, that, or the other thing, this, that, or the other relationship. It is that what conscience is telling you is indeed the truth. You stand guilty and condemned and exposed to the judgment of a righteous and a holy God who has said,

12:54 the soul that sins it shall die. The wages of sin is death. This do and you shall live. This fail to do and you shall die.

13:05 And when we begin to take seriously the voice of conscience as conscience adjusts its notes to the light and to the overtones of scripture, then this becomes to us a question that we get up with in the morning. Every moment during the day when the mind is free at all to think there is the pressure of this realization, I am a sinner, God is holy. How can a holy God justly pardon me, an unholy sinner? How can I, who am full of unrighteousness, be righteously accepted before God?

13:43 I know from the voice of conscience and more so as conscience echoes accurately the statements of scripture that I stand condemned. I stand under the light of God's holiness and I know that God will not cease to be holy in order to get me out of my dilemma. Whatever God may desire to do to see me have my sins forgiven, to be righteously accepted with Him, He cannot do it in a way that in any way stains the honor of His holiness or His justice, the majesty of His holiness and His justice. When that question begins to press in upon us, that ultimate question,

14:27 how can my sins be justly pardoned and how can I be righteously accepted, righteously accepted before the God of heaven and earth? It is then that the message that comes to us from Golgotha and from the garden tomb is indeed good news. The best news we could ever hear. Turn to Romans chapter 4 as we seek to hear the answer of Joseph's empty tomb to this ultimate question, can my sins be justly pardoned and can I be righteously accepted before the God of heaven and earth?

15:10 In Romans chapter 4 and verse 25 we read of our Lord Jesus. Let's back up to verse 23. Now it was not written for His sake alone, that is Abraham's sake alone, but for our sakes unto whom it shall be reckoned who believe on Him that raised Him Jesus our Lord from the dead who was delivered up for our trespasses and was raised for our justification. And I want to seek to fasten two little phrases on your mind.

15:47 Look at the passage delivered up for our trespasses and we could translate raised, raised up the word could legitimately bear that translation delivered up and raised up. And in those two phrases understood in their biblical meaning brought home to the troubled conscience by the power of the Holy Spirit eliciting faith in the God who raised up Jesus that is the answer to this question. How can my sins be justly pardoned and how can I ever hope to be righteously accepted before the living God?

16:32 When you ask has sin been paid for really paid for so that in the court of heaven the matter of my sin is rectified in such a way that God can be perfectly just perfectly holy and still forgive me for all of my sins. When you're wrestling with the question has sin been paid for you're to stand at Golgotha. And there you are to look and to listen to what God has recorded concerning the transactions within the Godhead there at Golgotha. This passage says

17:14 Golgotha was Jesus being delivered up for our trespasses in the language of Romans 8.32 He that spared not his son but same word delivered him up for us all. To what did he deliver him? He delivered him up to the wrath of evil men.

17:34 On the day of Pentecost Peter said you by wicked hands slew and killed him. Later on he says you killed the prince of life. The father gave him up to the wrath of evil men. The father gave him up to the powers of darkness.

17:51 Jesus said this is your hour and the power of darkness. But most of all he gave him up to his own righteous wrath against sin. And as you stand at Golgotha and behold the battered bloody brutalized form of God incarnate as you listen to that cry of dereliction the most mysterious words ever uttered in God's universe My God, my God why have you abandoned me? Hear that wail My God, my God why have you abandoned me?

18:32 And then when you recover from the shock of those words hear his cry of triumph It is finished! And his words Father into your hands I commend my spirit. When you're asking has sin been paid for stand at Golgotha drink in the sights and the sounds and ask yourself this question Would God the Father subject his son to this treatment at the hands of men and in the court of heaven if he were not dead serious about dealing with human sin? When you're wrestling with the question has sin really been dealt with?

19:16 Not some kind of a legal fiction but the real God who has real wrath against real sin who deals with sin in strict justice has sin been dealt with? Stand at Golgotha he was delivered up sin has been dealt with. Then you ask the second question can I know for certain that the payment was accepted? Can I know for sure that the cry it is finished was no exaggeration?

19:48 Can I know for certain that the payment made by Jesus as the substitute for sinners was fully accepted so that God can now be both just and the justifier of the one who trusts in him that God can still be righteous and give me a righteous acceptance before him? Well now you don't stand before Golgotha with that question you stand at the open mouth of the garden tomb you stand at Joseph's empty tomb and there you learn from Romans 4.25 as surely as he was delivered up

20:32 for our trespasses he was raised for our justification. Jesus cried from the cross to Telestai it is finished it stands accomplished. Do we know that it really stands accomplished? Well when we stand by Joseph's tomb we should see emblazoned over the opening to that tomb these blessed and wonderful words raised for our justification.

21:09 Raised because the debt against the sins of his people was fully paid there is nothing that remains to be done to adjust righteously the records of the court of heaven based on the life of Jesus that perfect life upon that substitutionary death and that validating resurrection the answer to this ultimate question is now clear can my sins be justly pardoned and can I be righteously accepted before the God of heaven and earth delivered up for our offenses raised for our justification. It is the resurrection

21:53 which validates all of the claims Christ made concerning his person and it certifies all the work that he accomplished in his office as our great priest offerer and offering and so I can say to every sinner here young or old deeply enmeshed in sin just as it were greatly restrained and flirting with the fringes of this or that sin it makes no difference Jesus is just the savior you need and I plead with you stop trying to adjust your conscience to your demands of your lusts and your passions don't play

22:38 with your conscience it's accusing you when you're deceptive with mom and dad it's accusing you and rightly so you're breaking several of God's commandments you're not honoring them when you deceive them and manipulate them when you lie you're breaking the ninth commandment you're not bearing true witness don't try to adjust your conscience to God's commandments don't try to adjust your conscience to feel comfort no when you do that you're sinning and when you look out upon things that others have and begin to have an inordinate passion to have them you're breaking the tenth commandment you shall not covet your neighbor's wife your neighbor's donkey his car his clothes

23:22 anything that is your neighbor's and go right down through the ten commandments conscience is speaking don't try to adjust to be comfortable with the demands of your passions and your lust if you do so you will have what the Bible calls a defiled and a seared conscience what conscience is saying when it points its finger of accusation is but a faint whisper of what God will say to you in the day of judgment and though you may now make valiant efforts to stifle the voice of conscience to place your hand over its mouth what can you do to muffle the mouth of God in the day of judgment when he will bring

24:07 you into judgment not only for every deed and every word but according to Romans 2 16 he will judge you according to the thoughts of your heart don't put your hand over the mouth of an accusing conscience rather run to Golgotha and to the garden tomb take your guilty conscience where Bunyan Cook is perhaps some of you have already thought of this from the pilgrim's progress now I saw in my dream that the highway up which Christian was to go was fenced in on either side with a wall that was called salvation up this way therefore did burden Christian run

24:51 but not without great difficulty because of the load on his back he was conscious of the weight of his sin he wasn't trying to do a head job on himself this is just a little bit of a spine out of alignment to come and give me a good adjustment he knew it was a burden and the burden was his sin and he was being honest with the voice of his conscience so we see him running but with great difficulty because of this load he ran thus till he came to a place somewhat ascending and upon that place stood a cross and a little below in the bottom a sepulcher a cross and a sepulcher so I saw in my dream with the cross

25:35 his burden loosed from off his shoulders fell off from his back and began to tumble and so continued to do till it came to the mouth of the sepulcher where it fell in and I saw it no more then was Christian glad and lightsome and said with a merry heart he has given me rest by his sorrow and life by his death then he stood still a while to look and wonder and very surprising to him that the sight of the cross should thus ease him of his burden he looked therefore and looked again even till the springs that were in his head sent the waters down his cheeks now as he stood looking and weeping

26:19 behold three shining ones came to him and greeted him with peace be to thee so the first said to him thy sins be forgiven thee the second stripped him of his rags and clothed him so set a mark on his forehead and gave him a roll with a seal upon it which he bade him look on as he ran and that he should give it in at the celestial gate so they went their way then Christian gave three leaps for joy and went on singing thus far did I come laden with my sin nor could aught ease the grief that I was in till I came hither what a place

27:03 must here be the beginning of my bliss must here the burden fall from off my back must here the strings that bound it to me crack blessed cross blessed sepulcher blessed rather be the man that was there put to shame for me delivered up raised up burden gone can I make it any simpler who was delivered for our trespasses raised for our justification hundreds of years after the apostle wrote this Bunyan expresses

27:48 his own experience in coming to the grace of God in Christ in this beautiful graphic description of one whose burden went from his back in the presence of the cross not the cross alone but the open sepulcher not the sepulcher without the cross not the cross without the sepulcher it is in the cross and in the sepulcher that that ultimate question can my sins be justly pardoned can I righteously be accepted before the righteous God of heaven and earth it is standing and hearing the message

28:32 from Joseph's empty tomb that enables us to answer that harking the ultimate question with respect to our sins you see it won't do for you to sit here and say well I'll hang in there for another half hour and you'll be done and then all the sin stuff I can forget about my friend look forgetting about doesn't change you God doesn't take notice of your sin that's the exact problem

29:17 that Paul is describing there in Romans chapter 2 you despise he says the goodness and forbearance of God not knowing that is to lead you to repentance but instead Paul says you by your hardness and impenitence of heart are treasuring up wrath and the riches of his mercy is the bank of his judgment don't pride yourself that you come through another Lord's day impenitent unbelieving despising the cross and the open tomb there may come a point where God says you want your sins

30:02 so bad I'll let you have them and he'll allow you to sear your conscience make it such that you can see the face of the Lord and he'll call you to the face of the Lord and you will be a great sinner that will say I can not trust not I trust not I trust that some of you wrestling

30:46 before the God of heaven and earth.

Question 2: Can the Power of My Sins Be Broken?

30:50 But then there is a second ultimate question that is answered there by Joseph's empty tomb, and it is this question. Can the power of my sins be broken so that I may live a life in the service of God and not my lusts? You see, that's a different question from the first one. The first one is the legal problem of our sin.

31:15 It brings guilt upon us. Hell-deservingness. We have no right standing with God. And in the cross and the open tomb, God has made provision for the vilest of sinners to have a righteous pardon, a just pardon, and a righteous acceptance in His presence.

31:35 But now this question has to do not with the guilt of sin, but with the power of sin. And no one begins to take seriously the problem of his guilt and begins to contemplate in a biblical way who does not at one point or another to one degree or another find another ultimate question coming before him. And that is the question of what do I do about the power of my sin. Surely I will not want to go on dishonoring a God who forgives me on the grounds of the work of His Son Jesus who was delivered up and raised up to resolve the problem of transgressions.

32:15 Surely I will not want to dishonor Him. And bring shame to Him. But I'm chained by my sins. The sins that produce my guilt in the court of heaven.

32:25 They have bound me. When I read the words of Jesus, who so commits sin is the slave of sin. I know it to be true. And if any of you don't know that that's what you are by nature, just try.

32:38 Set yourself to live holy according to God's standard of holiness that touches motives and thoughts and intentions and desires as well as deeds and actions. Acts and words. And so this question presses in upon the heart and mind of someone who's begun to take his Bible seriously. He sees that his Bible tells him nothing unclean shall enter into heaven without of the dogs.

33:04 The unclean, the unrighteous, the unholy. Be not deceived, Paul said. The unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor drunkards, nor thieves, nor effeminate.

33:20 God says that no one chained to his sins is going to enter heaven. A pardoned but chained sinner is not recognized in the Bible. Whom God pardons, he releases to become his bond slave. He dethrones sin, puts the child of God in the path of holiness, and begins to work in him the very likeness and image of his Son, a work that he will consummate, part at their deaths, and the rest at the second coming of the Lord Jesus, or both at once, for those who are alive and know him and love him when he appears.

33:59 So this question presses in. Can the power of my sins be so broken that I may be a servant of God, live a life that is pleasing to God? Well, the answer again is given to us there at Golgotha and the garden tomb. Turn to Romans chapter 6.

34:20 Where we see this so clearly taught.

34:24 Paul has been emphasizing in the previous couple of chapters how God has resolved the problem, the legal problems of our sin. How we can have a just pardon. And how we can be righteously accepted as righteous before the righteous God. All of it based upon the work of Jesus and received by faith alone.

34:49 Now then, someone reasons with the devil's logic. Wait a minute, Paul. Now you've said that because our salvation rests completely on the doing, the dying, the resurrection of another, that where sin abounds, God's grace super abounds, and there is no mountain of sin so high that it cannot be leveled on the basis of what Christ has done for sinners. That's right.

35:12 Oh well, then if we want grace to abound, let's let sin abound. Let's raise our sin up to 10,000 feet so grace will go to 15,000 and go above it. Let's raise our sin up to 15,000 and go above it. Then let's raise our sin to 15,000 that grace might go to 20,000.

35:25 Raise our sin to 25,000 that grace might go to 30,000. That's the question. Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? And his answer is, may it never be.

35:37 May Genoito, God forbid, now notice, we who died to sin, literally, we who are such in our essential identity as those who have died to sin, we who are such as have died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein? Or, are you ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus, all of us who have been brought into union with Christ from God's standpoint by the regenerating work of the Spirit, from the human standpoint by faith, God regenerating the sinner, repenting and believing there is union with Christ, that's being baptized into Christ,

36:22 Jesus, were baptized into his death. We were buried, therefore, with him through baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. You see, he's not talking here about our standing in the court of heaven. He's talking about what our feet do here on earth, how we walk.

36:50 Do we walk? Do we walk in the path of sin with sin still as our master? Sin as our cheerfully welcomed companion? He says no.

37:02 No. Why? Because our essential identity as Christians who have been united to Christ is, we have been united to him in the virtue of his death, that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we might walk. Joseph's empty tomb says, all who are united to Jesus rise with him to newness of life here and now, not just in the day of resurrection, in the last day.

37:33 For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away so that we should no longer be in bondage to sin. That's the question. Do I need to be in bondage to the sins which have provoked God's judgment? Do I need to be the lackey of my lust?

38:08 Paul says no. It's unthinkable. For if you have embraced Christ by faith, you have entered into the virtue of his death for sin which was also a death to sin and his resurrection to newness of life, which had in it the power of your resurrection to newness of life. Verse 7, For he that hath died is justified, released from sin.

38:34 But if we died with Christ, we believe we shall also live with him, knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dies no more. Death hath no more dominion over him. For the death that he died, he died unto sin once. But the life that he lives, he lives unto God.

38:50 Even so reckon yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that you should obey the lust thereof, neither present your members unto sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves unto God as alive from the dead. And your members as instruments of righteousness unto God, for sin shall not be hath dominion over you. For you are not under law, but under grace.

39:24 If you have come under the canopy of God's grace in union with Christ, that grace has liberated you from sin's dominion. And as surely as the text says that death hath no more dominion over him, in verse 9, verse 14 says, sin will no more have dominion over you. And those are parallel realities. As sure as Christ came out of Joseph's tomb, redolent, bursting with resurrection life, in principle he brought all of his people with him.

39:57 And every time a sinner believes and is united to Christ, there is as it were, how can we describe it? There is a drawing out of Christ's resurrection life, new life for the believer. You say, I don't understand it. I didn't ask you to understand it.

40:15 I've just been reading the passage and making comments along the way. To isolate this issue in terms of Joseph's open tomb. Christ did not simply die for sin. He died to sin.

40:29 All of the claims of sin upon him were exhausted. And all of the sins that he bore were not his but his people's. And so sin's claim over his people, those claims were broken, exhausted in his death. And his resurrection validates that blessed reality.

40:49 In that he died unto sin, he died unto sin once for all. Death has no more claim over him. And what produces death? Sin. The wages of sin is death.

40:58 I'm united to Christ in the virtue of his death. In his resurrection, I am Christ's free man. And when sin says to me, through the passions and lusts of my members, obey me. We say, no, you're no longer my master.

41:12 I am in Christ. And in Christ, your rightful authority over me has been broken. It is sinu, done, over with. And in newness of life, we walk in a way that is pleasing to him.

41:26 You see, this is what Jesus meant when he said, whom the Son sets free is free indeed. Do you have that question haunting you? How can the power of my sins be so broken that I may live a life that's pleasing to God? Not without sin?

41:46 No. Anyone claims they have so entered into the virtue of Christ's death and resurrection that they sin no more. God calls that person a liar. And the truth is not in him.

41:56 Yes, there is the ugly, humbling reality of remaining sin. There is the frightening reality that there are times when these very members that once were the slaves of sin, that are now the servants of God and of Christ and of righteousness, they do indeed reverse to some of their old patterns. That's a reality taught in the Bible. It's a reality known by every true child of God.

42:20 But it's a reality in the context of this great truth. That when we ask the question, can the power of my sin be broken, that I may live a life well pleasing to God, the answer is there in Joseph's empty tomb. Like as Christ was raised from the dead, so we also should walk in newness of life. That's why Paul could say, I have been crucified with Christ.

42:49 Nevertheless, I live. Not I, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live in faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Then I hasten to take up a third ultimate question.

Question 3: Will My Body and Loved Ones' Bodies Be Forever Left in the Grave?

43:10 And it's this question that sooner or later all of us have to face. And it's the question, will my body and the bodies of my life and my loved ones be forever left in the grave? It's a sobering thing when I sit in my study. I look over at the long, like a credenza file cabinet that's under the double windows on the side of my study.

43:36 And on that study there sits an aloe vera plant. Someone many, many years ago, probably, what is it honey, about 10 years ago that they sent that to me, sent a couple of withered fronds of an aloe vera plant wrapped up in cellophane and in a box. They sent it up from Florida. And I looked at that pathetic stuff and I said, he's dead.

43:58 He's not going anywhere. But we put it in some water and tried to nurse it to life. And to make a long story short, I got a nice pot for it and put it in the pot. And about twice a year, I take that thing outside.

44:10 It just has one main root. It has very little peripheral root system. It just looks like a big cigar. And I cut off about two to three inches and repot it because it just keeps growing up out of its center.

44:20 And I said, you know, it's a humbling thing. Somebody takes care of that plant, it'll live till the Lord comes. I'll be rotting in my grave while that stinking aloe vera plant will be there blossoming fresh life out of the center. It comes up out of the center, grows up and hangs over and I clip the ends off.

44:39 And when I get a burn or one of the grandchildren, I take a piece off and squirt some aloe vera or slime on them to help make it better. But that's a humbling thing. That plant will be thriving when I take it and I'm rotting in a grave. It's got no brain.

44:53 It's got no feelings. It doesn't love anybody. It doesn't hate anybody. It's just a stinking old aloe vera plant.

45:01 Has it got more God-given potential than you and I do? Is that going to be my end, the worms and the dust? It's a sobering thing. Will my body and the bodies of my loved ones be forever left in the grave?

45:19 I think of my 87-year-old mother and I can't picture her dead. She's so unwell. She's alive, spiritually, mentally, psychologically, interested in everything that passes her field of awareness. If you wonder where I get some of my quirkiness, I get it from my mother.

45:40 She's interested in anything and everything that lives and breathes and walks or talks and loves people when I'm out visiting her and we try to go from her room down to the dining room. We hardly ever get there on time because every once she meets, oh, Al, I'd like you to meet, so and so. Now, how is that some of yours? And what about his wife?

45:57 She's just enmeshed with people. She's not sitting around getting old and cranky. And I look at her and I say to myself, I can't picture her lying in the coffin, putting her in the grave, on the ground. That little woman bore 11 children.

46:09 The work that that body has produced. And I ask myself, is that the end of all of it? Just to consign it to the ground. That's a sobering thing.

46:19 Sooner or later, you're going to ask that question. Some of you kids now, oh, that's, oh, that's the end of that. That's long ago and far away. I look at the picture someone has recently sent me when I was the age of one of my grandchildren.

46:36 And that's me and how quickly the decades have passed. Sooner or later, you're going to come to grips with this ultimate question. Will my body and the body of my loved ones be forever left in the grave? Death is a great leveler.

46:55 The worms are no respecter of persons. And sooner or later, the fire and the finest concrete vault will yield to decay and dissolution. What do we say when we face that question? I tell you we stand before Joseph's empty tomb.

47:15 And as it were, with a megaphone it tells us this is not the end of those who trust in Christ. Look at Romans 8 in verse 11. But if the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall give life also to your mortal bodies through his spirit that dwells in you. And then he goes on to show how the whole creation waits for that full entrance of our privilege as sons and daughters

47:59 of God. The whole creation groans and travails waiting for what? Verse 22. The whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now.

48:10 Waiting for what? Verse 21. That the creation itself should be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. What is that liberty and that glory?

48:24 Here it is. We ourselves who have the first fruit of the spirit grown within ourselves waiting for our adoption that is the redemption of our body. We are saved in hope. The very context of our salvation is that the forgiveness and the acceptance we know now is not the full scope of our salvation.

48:47 We are saved in hope of a salvation that will not realize its divinely intended end until these bodies in the language of Philippians 3.21 are fashioned like unto the body of his glory. What an amazing statement. This body of humiliation shall be fashioned like unto the body of his glory.

49:11 Not just the body he had in his post-resurrection appearances. Though as we saw this morning that had certain properties and faculties that are not ordinarily present in ordinary human bodies. He could pass through walls. He could leave the grave clothes undisturbed and pass through them and yet have substance.

49:35 But that body was still suited for existence here on earth. And it has acquired properties and capacities when it passed into the heaven that suit it for heavenly light. And 1 Corinthians 15 says as we have borne the image of the earthly in Adam we shall bear the image of the heavenly even the Lord Jesus. Bodies fashioned after the pattern of the body of his glory.

50:03 His glory is seen through his bodily existence in heaven as we shall see it when he returns upon the clouds of heaven. I think it was C.S. Lewis who said if we could see one another now the way we're going to be then we would have to resist the temptation to fall down and worship each other.

50:27 That's true. Fashioned after the body of his glory we would have to resist the temptation to fall down and worship one another. No grave is not the last word. 1 Corinthians 15 20 we read it this morning read it this evening when Christ was raised from the dead it was not only the personal vindication of his personal claims he went to his death on behalf of his people in his headship with and over and in union with his people and when he was placed in the grave they were placed with him when he rose from the dead they rose in principle

51:12 with him and so now we read now has Christ been raised from the dead the first fruits of them that are asleep. Christ's resurrection was the first sheaf of the harvest of the resurrection of all of his people. Hence Paul can say to the Thessalonians somebody was circulating the notion that if you died before Jesus came at the second coming Paul says no I want to sort out that erroneous thinking so he says in chapter 4 in verse 13 we would not have you ignorant brethren concerning them that fall asleep that you sorrow not even as the rest who have no hope.

51:56 Now look at the connection if we believe that Jesus died and rose again even so them that are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with him. By the word of the Lord that we who are alive and are left to the coming of the Lord shall in no wise precede them that are fallen asleep. Somebody telling you if you're alive when the Lord comes you go to heaven first class those that are dead go second class no he said you got it backwards for the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God and the dead and the proverb

52:41 of time then we that are alive and are left shall together with them be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord wherefore comfort one another with these words. It's a marvelous thing to stand by the grave of a loved one and say grave a time is coming when your temporary conquest is going to be ended. Don't quote those words at a funeral now. Oh grave where is your victory?

53:13 There in 1st Corinthians 15 those are words spoken when Jesus comes and the last enemy is so thoroughly destroyed that the bodies of the saints have been resurrected to the glory and the liberty of resurrection life and power then shall come to pass this saying oh grave where is your victory? God gives it temporary victory over us. I don't like death I don't like the thought of dying and if you're honest with me I don't like death but it is appointed and the man wants to die and the child of God no longer looks upon death as a dreaded intruder but a necessary discipline in one of the stages

53:58 of his salvation in Christ. For the moment the heart stops and you breathe your last God puts forth a measure of sanctifying energy and power upon that soul that is departing from the body into the presence it has joined the company of just men made perfect. There will be more sanctification in the blink of an eye when you die than you've seen in a whole lifetime if you've been a Christian for 50 years. That's an amazing thing.

54:31 You see that takes some of the dread away that's what Paul meant when he said I have a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better. What's far better? The communion I know with him now must be held in the context of the Holy Spirit in this tabernacle Paul says do groan being burdened but when the spirit wings its way into the presence of Christ and is perfected into the moral likeness of Christ awaiting the day when the body shall be raised from the dead the intermediate state is better than what we now have but it isn't the best the best is yet to come when reunited with a body raised from the dead we shall forever be with the Lord. Now someone asked

55:15 and was talking to her dad this morning and the dad put in a plug to address this so I'm complying with the dad's request you see if you request you just might get your request filled but you gotta do it before I start preaching alright and so he said say something about this matter what happens there's a body goes into the grave hundred years later bulldozer comes and bulldozes the whole area and the graves are all disintegrated the worms have eaten it decomposed now may be part of an animal somewhere may be part of a tree somewhere else how does God resurrect the body you know my answer to that is two parts to the answer

56:00 one is read the last part of first Corinthians 15 where Paul takes up people who ask that question and see what he calls them not very flattering but don't do it now the second thing is and I don't mean to be cheeky when I say once you've embraced Genesis 1-1 that's no big deal for you and you've said in the beginning God uncaused cause of all causes in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and how does he do it by talking he doesn't work up a sweat he doesn't flex his biceps he just talks and God said and there was and God said and there was and I read something the other day where the astronomers were being

56:44 set on their heels again what they thought were some black holes they're now saying contain distant galaxies numbering into the hundreds or thousands. The God who can speak all of that with the word of his mouth, he's going to have no problem reconstituting my dust. Some of it may be part of your fingernails right now. You see, you may have in your fingernails somebody else's dust.

57:07 And some may be on that mounted fish in your game room. And some may be here. It's no big deal for the God who can speak galaxies into being with the word to reconstitute the atoms from your earthly remain and do whatever he needs to do to give us a body that is fashioned like unto the body of his glory. Once you're comfortable with Genesis 1-1, there's nothing the Bible says God has done or shall do that will stick in your throat.

57:35 With God, all things are possible. And then what Paul does in that passage, I'll give you a little clue. He said, just look around at you. What similarity is there between that beautiful flower that is already blossoming in your backyard with the coming of spring and the seed that was put in the ground?

57:54 The seed, rob it, broke open, was an ugly-looking thing. I've pulled up some partially decomposed acorns when they're trying to sprout a new oak tree. Ugly little thing. When it comes to its full potential, what relationship does it have to the little acorn?

58:11 Paul says, you fool, look around. The God that can do that tens of millions of times, all around. All around you, he's going to have no problem raising up your body from the dust. And that's our hope.

58:24 That's our confidence. That's the answer to the ultimate question, will my body and the bodies of my loved ones be forever left in the grave? I've not touched on the resurrection of the unconverted because I close with the fourth ultimate question much more briefly now. Here's the fourth ultimate question.

Question 4: Will There Really Be a Day of Universal Judgment?

58:45 Will there really be a day of universal judgment? Will there really be a day of universal judgment? Will there really be a day of judgment? Now, why do I phrase the question that way?

58:56 Because there is no man or woman who does not know instinctively something about a coming day of accountability. Paul can write in Romans 1.32 of those who have been sunk into the deepest cesspools of human depravity, who've never heard the word of God, who've never seen a Bible. He says, who, knowing the judgment of God, that they who are in the world of God, they who do such things are worthy of death, not only do them, but take pleasure in those who do them.

59:27 You know the judgment of God. To some degree, you know it. Now, the question is, are those haunting, haunting, pressing sense of awareness, is that a valid concern?

59:43 Go by Joseph's empty tomb and you'll get your answer. While Jesus was alive, he said words such as these in John chapter 5. The Father judges, as no man but has committed all judgment unto the Son. Now, verse 27, John 5.

60:02 He gave him authority to execute judgment because he is the Son of Man. Marvel at this, for the hour is coming in which all that are in the tombs shall hear his voice and shall come forth. They that have done good unto the resurrection of life and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of life. So, you're here in Jesus' view of judgment.

60:27 Jesus, who is truth incarnate, said an hour is coming when all that are in the tombs shall hear his voice. No one sitting here is in a tomb tonight.

60:41 But if the Lord delays his coming and you should all live out your allotted 70 or 80 years, in less than 100 years, all of us are going to be in a grave somewhere. So, you're here in Jesus' view of reality. He sees you. He sees me.

61:01 All that are in the tombs. Without exception. That means you. Don't try to make yourself an exception.

61:11 As surely as you'll die,

61:14 you're in your tomb. You're going to hear his voice. And what will you do when you hear his voice? Jesus said, you shall come forth.

61:23 The voice that stood by the tomb of Lazarus and said, Lazarus, come forth. Lazarus, come forth. Lazarus, come forth. Lazarus, come forth.

61:33 He said to do nothing other than come forth with the voice that summoned him out of the grave. And some have suggested he called his name lest in speaking generally everyone in that surrounding area would have come forth with the voice of the Son of God. Lazarus, come forth! And it says he came forth still girded with his grave cloths.

61:57 And he says, loosen. Let him go. That voice will call you and call me from the ground. He shall come forth.

62:04 And that will issue in a resurrection unto life or a resurrection unto judgment. Is the sense that there's going to be a day of judgment valid? Yes, it is. Stand by Joseph's open tomb and it's validated.

62:22 Well, you say, I don't see that in this passage. No, it isn't there. But it is in the final passage I set before you, Acts chapter 17.

62:32 Jesus said, I will call you forth. What proof do we have he's going to make good with his word? Paul is preaching to these pagan philosophers there at the Areopagus in Athens. And we read as he brings his sermon to a conclusion.

62:54 Conclusion, verse 30. The times of this ignorance therefore God overlooked. But now he commands men that they should all everywhere repent. He is saying something to all men.

63:08 Everywhere. And it is that they should repent. Why? Inasmuch as he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained.

63:24 That's Jesus. Jesus said, All judgment has been delivered unto me of my Father. The hour is coming in which all that are in the graves shall hear my voice and come forth. He will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained.

63:40 Now notice the last part of the verse. Whereof he has given assurance unto all men in that he raised him from the dead. He sure didn't look like the judge of the world when he's hanging on the cross. Battered, bruised, blood-soaked, taunted, mocked in the shame of nakedness.

64:03 Crying out, Not only have men forsaken me, but my own Father has forsaken me. Can you imagine what some of those Jews who heard his initial words might have said? Because they remembered his words early in his ministry when he cleansed the temple. He said, Destroy this temple in three days, I'll raise it up.

64:23 Several years later, they remembered those words and they went to the authorities and said, This deceiver, when he was alive, said that after three days he would rise again from the dead. Let's make sure that this doesn't happen. Let's set a guard at his tomb.

64:37 He didn't look like judge of the world hanging on the cross. Himself the victim of a puppet court and all kinds of judicial irregularities and injustices and he seemed to be utterly helpless. Then they said, Come down, instruct yourself, judge of the world, son of God, your claims. There he hangs.

64:59 He bows his head in death.

65:03 You can imagine how some might have really felt a sense of triumphalism of his talk about judgment. Look at him.

65:14 Three days later, Joseph's tomb is empty and Paul says that empty too is heaven's validation upon Jesus' identity as the judge of the world.

65:28 I would have no grounds to say that while I'm alive you'll see the face of Jesus in judgment, but I can say on the basis of the word of God at some point in your life history you will see him face to face.

65:44 And it will be those words, Come you blessed or depart you cursed.

65:51 Everything in my emotional life could wish there were some median word, some middle ground.

65:59 The word of God says he'll say depart or welcome.

66:05 Depart or welcome. The words you hear me speak tonight, depart, welcome, you'll hear them from the son of God. One or the other.

Concluding Exhortation: Repent and Believe

66:15 And the difference is what you do with the one who hung upon the cross, went into that tomb and came out triumphant over sin and death and who this night again comes to you in the word and promises and gracious command of the gospel and says come unto me and I will give you rest. Repent and believe the gospel. It's a sobering thing. I told my wife driving here tonight, rarely is there a time when I climb those steps from that back room that I don't say to myself this may be the last time you climb those stairs.

66:54 Sometime will be the last time.

66:58 If tonight were,

67:02 would I hear him say to you as by grace I have confidence he will say to me come you blessed.

67:12 Will I stand there and hear him say to some of you who sat here tonight depart you cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

67:27 I speak especially to you young people your mind filled with all of your dreams and ambitions according to the scriptures passages such as Ecclesiastes, 12 there never never, never is a more likely time for you to remember your creator than now in the days of your youth. Life is relatively simple. You think you got it hard you've got demanding teachers and demanding parents and you never had it so good.

67:56 The wise man of Ecclesiastes says seize this opportunity to settle the great issues. May God grant that as we stand by Joseph's empty tomb and we ask those ultimate questions that we will not only hear the answer of God in scripture but by the grace of God live in the light of those answers. Let's pray. Our father how we plead with you that you will make your word effectual in the heart of everyone gathered in this place tonight.

68:38 Lord you know it grieves and frightens some of us to think that there will be people who will having sat here leave here. Strangers to your grace. Strangers to your forgiving and pardoning mercy. Strangers to your sin dethroning grace in Jesus Christ.

68:59 And Lord you know if we could we would change them and cause them to see the loveliness of Christ the desirability of the life of faith and holiness. But Lord you have not given that power to us and we beg of you that you will exercise it in grace and in mercy even in this place tonight. We thank you as your people that in the world of sin and sickness and death and the shadow as it were of the grave constantly cast across our path that we have this wonderful hope and confidence that as our Lord Jesus

69:42 was raised from the dead the grave will not have the last word with us. Amen. Amen. we bless you we praise you and we ask oh lord that more and more we shall live as the pilgrims and sojourners that we are hear our prayers and help us throughout this coming week so to adorn the gospel that we may be a monument of your grace that we may be instruments of conveying the knowledge of christ to others receive our thanks for this day in your courts we thank you for this special day your day day of all the week the best emblem of eternal rest

70:23 receive our praise and dismiss us with your blessing we ask in jesus name amen