Amen, 1 Corinthians chapter 15 is sometimes called the resurrection chapter because it's
a big long chapter that's all about the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
And one of the big things that this chapter emphasizes is the importance of the resurrection
for us and how the resurrection actually ties in with our resurrection.
The resurrection of Jesus ties in with our resurrection, okay?
The Bible says in verse number 1, Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which
I preached unto you, of course gospel means good news, which also you have received and
wherein ye stand by which also ye are saved, if you keep in memory what I preached unto
you, unless you have believed in vain.
Now this mention here of in vain is a theme that comes up actually throughout the chapter.
Right at the very beginning here, he brings up this idea of unless you believed in vain
and then at the very end of the chapter, he concludes everything by saying in verse
58, Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work
of the Lord, for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.
Now what is this talk about things being in vain?
Well, if you jump down to verse number 14, it says, And if Christ be not risen, then
is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.
Here's what he's saying, if Jesus Christ didn't rise from the dead, then Christianity
doesn't really even exist is what he's saying.
This is the cornerstone of Christianity, the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ,
and without the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, there is no Christianity.
He said, any Christian preaching that does not confess that Jesus Christ rose from
the dead is vanity.
It's fake.
It isn't real.
It isn't even worth listening to.
And then he says that your faith is vain.
What did you even believe in?
Because whatever you believed in is wrong.
And if you believe something wrong, then you believed in vain.
And if you have faith in Christ, but Christ didn't even raise from the dead, then what
good is that going to do you?
Let's just eat, drink and be merry.
Because tomorrow we die is what the Bible says here.
But thank God Christ is risen from the dead.
And so we do have hope we do have salvation.
So the Bible says that it's by that death, burial and resurrection.
It's by the gospel that ye are saved.
You're not saved by your works.
You're not saved by keeping the commandments.
You're not saved by living a good life or following in Christ's steps.
No you're saved by the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.
You're saved by that gospel.
Another thing that he emphasizes right away at the beginning of this chapter, aside from
the idea that without the resurrection of Christ, all of Christianity is vain.
All of our faith is vain.
Our salvation is void.
He also emphasizes this thing of the fact that he has already preached this to them.
They've already heard it before.
And that he's just coming back and saying something to them that they should already
know.
That's why he emphasizes this by saying, if you keep in your memory what I preached
unto you, do you remember what I preached when I was with you about the resurrection?
And then he says, verse three, for I delivered unto you, first of all that which I also
received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, verse four, and
that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures
and that he was seen of Cephas and then of the 12th, and he goes through these witnesses
of the resurrection.
And so he's emphasizing the fact, look, you should remember this.
You've already heard this.
I already preached this to you.
But here's the thing.
This is one of those doctrines that needs to be emphasized again and again because it's
so important and because it's one that the devil loves to attack.
And so therefore it needs to always be brought to the forefront of our mind so that we keep
it in remembrance and so that we do not fall into any kind of false doctrines in
this regard.
Now here's the thing about the resurrection of Christ.
Our resurrection is dependent upon the resurrection of Christ.
It says in First Thessalonians, if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them
also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with it.
So if we believe Jesus died and rose again, then we believe that one day we will see
our loved ones again because there's going to be that resurrection at the second coming
of Christ.
And so our resurrection is dependent on Christ's resurrection.
Now if you think about it, the moment that you got saved, a resurrection took place
within you spiritually, right?
Because before you were saved, your spirit was dead in trespasses and sins.
But the moment that you believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, your spirit was resurrected
or brought back to life, brought back from the dead.
And so now you're spiritually saved, but nothing changed about your body.
One day your physical body is going to die, but then at the second coming of Christ,
your body will also be physically resurrected.
Just the way your spirit was resurrected the moment you got saved, your body is going
to be resurrected at the second coming of Christ.
Now here's the thing.
These doctrines are all linked together and you can't separate them.
And so if somebody comes along and says that there's going to be no bodily resurrection
of Christians, then it makes you wonder, does this person even believe in the bodily
resurrection of Jesus?
Right?
If you believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus, if we believe that Jesus died and
rose again, even so them also, which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him?
And isn't it interesting how the same people who deny the bodily resurrection of Christ
are the same type of people that will typically deny the second coming of Christ
because the second coming of Christ and that resurrection of believers that comes
along with that is linked to the doctrine of Jesus' bodily resurrection.
Now you say, well Pastor Anderson, you keep saying bodily resurrection.
Why are you emphasizing that?
Because of course the devil likes to come along and he likes to redefine terms to
make it sound like he's telling the truth or to make it sound like he's a Christian
by saying things like, oh, we believe in the resurrection of Christ, but they just
believe it's a spiritual resurrection or some nonsense like that.
And this is why this chapter is so important because it says the death, burial and resurrection.
It says that he died and was buried and rose again.
And the thing about that is that you don't bury a spirit, you don't bury a soul, you
bury a body.
And so the very fact that it says his death, burial and resurrection is emphasizing
the fact that we're talking about the body, talking about a bodily resurrection.
Jesus Christ of course said in John chapter two, destroy this temple and in three days
I will raise it up.
And he spake of the temple of his body.
He said, I'm going to raise up this body from the dead.
Of course, Jesus Christ, when he rose again, he showed the disciples the holes in his hands.
He showed them the hole in his side and they actually literally touched him and put
their fingers in the holes in his hands.
And not only that, he ate and drank with them.
He ate a piece of fish, he ate a piece of a honeycomb and by eating and drinking
with them, it wasn't just that he just happened to show up all the time around dinner
time and he just always shows up hungry.
I believe that he made a point to show up and eat because he wanted to show them that
he had bodily risen and even flat out says in Luke 24, a spirit hath not flesh and
bone as you see me to have saying, look, come handle me.
This is flesh and bone.
This isn't a ghost.
This isn't a spirit.
I am physically bodily here.
So anyone who rejects the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ is not saved because you have
to believe that gospel in order to be saved, right?
And obviously they don't care what the Bible says because the Bible is super clear on
this.
And by the way, let me just name a few million people who don't believe in the
bodily resurrection of Christ, the Jehovah's Witnesses.
The Jehovah's Witnesses reject the bodily resurrection of Christ.
And I've quoted these scriptures to countless Jehovah's Witnesses.
I've showed them John 2, I've showed them Luke 24 and I've never had one be able to
give me an answer, but the last guy showed this to said, well, why does this matter?
He said, why are you making such a big deal out of whether it was the bodily resurrection?
And you know, that's spoken like someone who's been proven wrong but doesn't care
what the truth is because they don't believe in Jesus because they're a lying false prophet.
And that's what the Jehovah's Witnesses are.
And I hope that their religion just completely dies out now that the internet exists because
it just, the internet, it just shines a light on the foolishness of these cults.
And so I hope that some of these cults will just completely close up shop in the
next few decades due to the power of the internet to shine the light on their bizarre
origin stories, their bizarre histories, their false doctrines are so easily debunked now
using the internet as a tool.
So it says here in verse 4 that Christ was buried and that he rose again the third day
according to the scriptures and that he was seen of Cephas, Cephas is also known
as Peter, then of the 12, then after that he was seen of above 500 brethren at once.
Now here's the thing about this, this wasn't just a really big family, okay?
When it says 500 brethren, we're talking about 500 saved people, okay?
Now here's what's interesting about that is that Jesus Christ, after he rose from
the dead, showing himself to 500 people, that's a pretty big crowd, isn't it?
I mean, that's a lot of people.
You know, we have here this morning, what, Daniel, how many people do we have?
About 400 people, 397.
And here's the thing about that is that if you added another hundred people to what
you see in this room right here, that's the size of crowd that was there when Jesus appeared
to 500 brethren at once.
That's a pretty big crowd.
Now stop and think about this, that when Jesus Christ appeared after the resurrection,
he chose to only appear to Christians.
Notice he's not just showing up in a marketplace or just showing up to the unbelieving Jews
or just showing up to just random Greek pagans or, I don't know, just appearing in
North America and showing himself to the Indians as the Mormons teach, speaking of
cults.
You know, the Garden of Eden used to be in Missouri and all that, but anyway, that's
what they believe.
Hopefully the internet can destroy them too.
But the thing about that is that Jesus Christ showed himself to over 500 brethren at once
and the importance of this is that salvation is by faith in Jesus Christ.
And so Jesus didn't want to just show himself alive and just show up, hey everybody,
look, I rose from the dead, put your finger in the print of the nails of my hands
and that.
He's showing that to his disciples.
He's showing that to people that are already saved and he's showing them so that they
could be eyewitnesses of the resurrection.
But in order for people to be saved, they have to believe that without seeing it.
In order for me to be saved, in order for you to be saved, we had to believe on
Jesus without seeing Jesus because faith is the substance of things hoped for and
faith is the evidence of things not seen.
Right?
So the fact that we didn't see Christ is why we have to believe in him based
on what the word of God says.
And see, without faith, it's impossible to please God.
So God doesn't just want to go around necessarily just showing himself alive to everyone because
he wants people to believe based on his word and he wants people to trust in the word
of God.
And so it's significant that even though he did show himself alive to hundreds of people,
they were brethren.
They were people who were saved.
And it says, of whom the greater part remain unto this present.
I mean, he's saying, look, most of those people are still alive because, you know,
this is being written just probably a couple of decades later or something.
And so he's saying, you know, a lot of those people are still alive.
You could actually talk to some of those people that were there because there were
500 of them.
But of course, some of them had died.
Some of them had fallen asleep.
That's a euphemism for being dead.
After that, he was seen of James, then of all the apostles.
And last of all, he was seen of me also as of one born out of due time.
And so notice as last of all, he was seen of me.
He stopped making these appearances because the last one that he appeared to is the apostle
Paul.
So anybody tells you that Jesus showed up and appeared to them recently is lying because
the next time anybody sees him, every eye shall see him when he comes in the clouds.
But he was last of all seen of the apostle Paul.
Paul is the last apostle, he's the last one to see bodily the resurrected Christ.
And I always ask these people when they tell me that they saw Jesus, what do you look
like?
Oh, you saw Jesus, what do you look like, you know?
And then they describe some long haired hippie and I'm like, nope, wasn't him.
Because the Bible says it's a shame for a man to have long hair.
I don't care what Renaissance painters have done, that's not what the Word of God teaches
about Jesus.
And so that right away just puts that story to bed.
But the Bible says that in verse 10, but by the grace of God, I am what I am, as the
apostle Paul speaking is grace, which was bestowed upon me was not in vain.
Notice again, that theme of things not mattering or things being wasted or things
being in vain.
He said, no, no, the grace, which was bestowed upon me was not in vain, but I
labored more abundantly than they all yet not I, but the grace of God, which was
with me.
Therefore, whether it were I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed.
So everything's good up to verse 11.
You know, Jesus Christ died, he was buried, he rose again, there are all these witnesses.
That's what we preach.
That's what you believe.
This is what I've devoted the last few decades of my life toward preaching and serving
God and getting this message out.
But then he comes in verse 12 and says, and this is pretty much what the rest of the
chapter is about.
He says, now, if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among
you that there is no resurrection of the dead?
He's saying, how in the world can people call themselves Christians?
How are there people going to church?
They're at the church of Corinth that don't even believe in the resurrection.
How can this be?
Like, how can people say that?
But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen?
So notice how the Apostle Paul links the resurrection of the dead in general to the
resurrection of Christ.
And this is what I was saying earlier in the sermon, how these things are connected,
right?
Our bodily resurrection as Christians is tied to the resurrection of Christ.
You know, if you're saying that the dead don't raise, meaning in general, then basically
you're saying that Christ didn't raise.
And if you don't believe that Christ rose from the dead, then how can you believe that
we're going to rise from the dead?
These things are inextricably linked.
And so he says, if there be no resurrection of the dead, you know, in general, then is
Christ not risen?
If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain and your faith is also vain.
Yeah, we're found false witnesses of God because we've testified of God that he raised
up Christ whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.
So basically if somebody believes that the dead rise not, then that means that the Apostle
Paul would be a false witness, then Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John would all be false witnesses.
And you know, basically James would be a false witness also is mentioned here.
And so here's the thing about that is that there are churches today and so-called Christian
denominations today that, and I'm not talking about the cults anymore like Jehovah's Witnesses
or something, but also even of your mainline denominations, you'll have these super liberal
churches that deny these key articles of faith, like say the United Methodists or
something where they'll say there's no virgin birth, no resurrection of Christ bodily.
And here's what I always wonder, why would anyone go to these churches?
Why would anyone go?
You say, well, they're just super liberal and they're queers and lesbians or something.
Yeah, but here's the thing, like, but why would, why would they go to any church?
You see what I mean?
Like, like if you don't believe in the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus Christ,
why wouldn't you just eat, drink and be merry?
Because tomorrow you're going to die.
Why would you take your Sunday and go put on a funny outfit and go to some church?
You don't even believe in Jesus.
It doesn't even make sense.
But isn't it bizarre today how literally millions of people go to these weird liberal
left wing, like rainbow flag flying type churches where they deny the virgin birth
of Christ or where they deny the bodily resurrection of Christ or where they don't
believe in the second coming of Christ.
What's even the point?
Paul says, how can this even exist in Christianity?
How can there even be anyone among you that says that the dead rise not?
It doesn't even make any sense and it's all a waste and it makes no sense and you're
wasting your time even going to church if that's your doctrine.
It's bizarre.
It makes no sense.
Why would they do it?
Well, it's because the devil himself has transformed into an angel of light and the
devil's ministers are transformed into the ministers of light and so they're there going
through this mockery of Christianity just in order to deceive people.
And by the way, let me just call this out for what it is.
The doctrine of full preterism and if you don't know what that is, good.
But when it comes to eschatology, hey, I understand a lot of people believe different
things about eschatology and hey, we should be tolerant of other people's views
of eschatology because of the fact that a lot of things in prophecy are difficult
to understand.
They're more advanced and hard to understand, you know, so people have different views
on the rapture, the tribulation, you know, whatever.
Let me tell you something, full preterism is damnable heresy and the Apostle Paul would
say to you, if you're full preterist, he would say to you, like, why do you even
go to church?
Why don't you eat, drink and be married because you're going to go to hell and
you're going to die.
So you might as well just enjoy what time you've got because your faith is vain.
Everything you preach is vain because if you're going to deny again the future resurrection
of the dead, you know, then basically the Apostle Paul says, well, then Christ isn't
raised by your logic.
You're a false prophet.
And so full preterism is damnable heresy.
People deny the second coming of Christ are damnable heretics.
Now again, there's room for people to be in error about end times and have different
views about prophecy.
But when you're denying the second coming, you've crossed the line.
When you're denying a future resurrection, a future bodily resurrection, you've crossed
the line and now you've just gone into total heresy at that point.
Those are essentials of our faith, according to 1 Corinthians chapter 15.
And so it says in verse 16, again, this is repeated.
He already said it in verse 13, verse 16, if the dead rise not, then is not Christ
raised.
And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins, right?
Because the only way we get any forgiveness for our sins or redemption or salvation is
through the Gospel of Jesus through his death, their own resurrection.
So if you didn't have the resurrection, you'd still be in your sins, you'd still
be damned.
And so it says, then they also verse 18, which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.
What's he saying there?
He's saying they're gone forever.
You're never going to see them again if there's no resurrection.
If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men, most miserable.
You say, well, Christianity is just so great, you know, we just do it for the teachings
of Christ.
We just do it for his godly example, you know, and he's just a great teacher, he's
just a great rabbi.
You know, he's just a great, you know, whatever, spiritual teacher or something.
But that's not what the Bible says.
I mean the Bible says, look, if it's not the death, burial and resurrection, if it's
not salvation, if it's not a resurrection of the just and a resurrection of the unjust
and future heaven and hell, then it's all vain and meaningless.
And we would be the most miserable because we're going around preaching all this stuff
and it isn't even real, he's saying.
What a bunch of garbage to believe that.
But, and then verse 20 is the turning point here, but now is Christ risen from the dead
and become the firstfruits of them that slept.
And again, what is verse 20 doing?
Verse 20 is again, tying Christ's resurrection to our resurrection.
See how the two are inextricably linked?
He is the firstfruits of them that slept.
He is the first one to bodily raise from the dead and then afterward it's going
to be us at Christ's coming.
Now here's the thing about that.
You say, well Pastor Anderson, didn't dead bodies get raised from the dead in the Old
Testament or didn't Jesus raise some people back to life?
But the difference is that those people died again, okay?
So in the Old Testament when someone died and say, Elisha brought a body back to life,
that guy's not still alive today.
He was just temporarily brought back.
You could almost even think of that as more like a, and I'm not being blasphemous
or downplaying the miracle, but more of a resuscitation than the type of resurrection
where we're talking about somebody who rises from the dead immortal.
You see the difference?
Because when Lazarus died, yeah, he was in the grave for four days and then Lazarus
was brought back, but he's not still alive.
He died.
Now the second time they probably waited to have the funeral a little while just to make
sure he's not going to pop out again after a few days.
He might've waited like a week or something just, okay, I think it's safe to have the
service now, but he died.
Only one person, don't miss this, only one person in the history of the world has
resurrected immortal and that's Jesus.
Jesus is the only person, not one in 2023, not one other person has been resurrected
from the dead to die no more, to be immortal, to live forever.
It's only Jesus.
He is the first fruits.
Now this is an illustration that 1 Corinthians chapter 15 uses because if you think about
farming, when you're growing crops, you have the first fruits, then you have the
main harvest, and then you would have gleanings.
So you have some outliers that come early, then you have boom, the big harvest comes
in, and then you have some outliers that are kind of late to the party, and those
are the three stages of harvest according to the Bible.
First fruits, the harvest, and then the gleaning.
So according to the Bible, Jesus Christ is the first fruits of the resurrection.
He's an outlier because he resurrected thousands of years before anyone else, right?
He resurrected already almost 2,000 years ago.
And so he's that first fruit, that plant that ripened before the main field was ready
for harvest or ripened, okay?
So we have Christ the first fruits, then we have the main harvest which is going
to take place at the second coming of Christ.
Now if you would, jump down, or actually we don't even need to jump down because we
just read verse 20, it says in verse 21, for since by man came death, by man came
also the resurrection of the dead.
Now look at verse 22, for as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive,
but every man in his own order.
So there's an order to the resurrection, there's a chronological order.
Christ the first fruits, okay?
Afterward they that are Christ's that is coming.
So stage one is just Jesus, a couple thousand years go by, boom, now we have the main
harvest.
When is that main harvest?
At Christ's coming, when Jesus Christ comes in the clouds, the trumpet sounds, the Bible
says the dead in Christ shall rise first.
Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them 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.
So the Bible says that when the trumpet sounds, Christ comes in the clouds, the dead in
Christ will rise first, and then those who are fortunate enough to be saved and
be living at the time of Christ's second coming will actually not die.
They will actually just be transformed.
They will just be caught up together with them in the clouds.
And that's why the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 15 itself, we shall not all sleep, but we
shall all be changed.
What does he mean when he says we shall not all sleep?
He's saying not everyone is going to physically die because there are going to be those that
are alive and remain under the coming of the Lord.
They won't sleep, but they will be changed.
So for the vast majority of people, they're going to go from being, you know, a dead body
in the ground as far as physically to being resurrected as a spiritual body, whereas those
who are alive and remain are just going to go through that change to that resurrected
spiritual body without actually dying.
We talked when we were filming our Marching to Zion film, we talked to this Jewish rabbi
who said, you know, this is one of the wonderful things that we weren't able to put
into the movie just because you can't, you know, the movie be 10 hours long or something.
But this, this Jewish rabbi told us, he said that when the Messiah comes, everybody dies.
And I was like, excuse me?
He's like, when the Messiah comes, I don't know if this video is still on YouTube.
It used to be as like a little, just a four minute clip.
He's like, when the Messiah comes, everybody dies.
You could see me in the interview, like, say what?
But he's like, they stop breathing.
They're just, they're dead.
And then, you know, the righteous are resurrected or whatever.
And he said, you know, this shouldn't be seen as horrifying or scary or anything.
It's fine.
You know, don't worry, nothing to see here.
I was like, wow, that but that when they're talking about the Antichrist, you know, because
they're not Christians.
They're not talking about Jesus Christ.
They don't believe that Jesus is the Christ.
It's that spirit of Antichrist.
But here's the thing about that is that that's not what the Bible says, because the Bible
says we should not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.
So when Christ shows up, if you're alive and ready, he doesn't have to kill you
real quick so he can resurrect you.
You just go straight to the spiritual body.
You just bypass that step.
And you know, perhaps it may happen in our lifetime.
We may be that generation, right?
You know, those that are older shouldn't be nodding your head so vigorously.
No, I'm just kidding.
You know, we might be that generation, but honestly, we don't know.
It could be hundreds of years from now.
It could be in this decade.
We have no clue when this is going to happen.
We don't know the times and the seasons.
But the thing about that is that whenever it happens, that generation that's alive is
not going to die.
They're just going to be changed in a moment in twinkling of an eye.
And so the Bible says, don't miss that this is such an important teaching when it comes
to end times.
And like I said, I'm tolerant of other people's views, but then there's the right
view, you know.
So let's get on the right view here, okay?
And here's the right view according to the Bible is that the resurrection takes place
in three stages.
There are three phases to the resurrection.
There is the first fruit stage, the harvest, and then the gleanings.
According to the Bible, the first fruits are just Jesus.
Christ is the first fruits of the resurrection.
That's it.
And that's where we're at right now.
He's the only one who has risen.
But just because he rose, that's why we believe that the other resurrections are going
to take place as well.
Okay.
Then afterward, they that are Christ's that is coming.
Easy to understand, right?
Christ comes in the clouds, trumpet sounds, that's a resurrection right there.
What about the third stage, the gleaning stage?
Well what does the Bible say next?
Christ the first fruits, afterward they that are Christ's that is coming, then cometh
the end.
So the final stage of the resurrection is what the Bible is calling here, the end.
Then cometh the end, and he's going to explain to us what that end is that he's talking
about.
End of what?
It says when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, now who's the he?
It's the Christ from verse 23, right?
When he, Christ, shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when
he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power, for he must reign till
he hath put all enemies under his feet.
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
So what do we see here?
Jesus Christ is going to reign, and after Jesus Christ has reigned, after Jesus Christ
has defeated all his enemies, then he will deliver up the kingdom to God the Father.
That is what the Bible calls the end, okay?
So we would refer to this as after the millennium, okay, we would call this the millennium,
and where we get that term the millennium is from the book of Revelation where the
Bible talks about in Revelation chapter 20 that Jesus Christ will reign on this earth
for a thousand years.
Now some people would say, well Jesus is ruling and reigning right now, but that's
not really the key thing about the millennium.
The key thing about the millennium is that during the millennium the devil is actually
bound in hell for one thousand years.
So it's not just that Christ is reigning, it's that the devil is confined to hell
for a thousand years.
Let me ask you something, is the devil confined to hell right now?
Good stinking night, he's everywhere it seems like, he's doing all kinds of stuff and
all his minions are hard at work all the time, and so no, the devil is not confined
to hell, therefore we are not in the millennium right now.
But when that millennial reign comes, Christ will rule over a kingdom of peace for a
thousand years, but then at the end of that peaceful thousand year reign of Christ
on this earth, then of course there will be a rebellion, and Jesus Christ will defeat
the last of his enemies, and that's what the Bible is talking about here.
So Christ the first fruits, afterward they that are Christ's coming, and then comes
the end when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God even under the Father.
So these are the three resurrections, there's only three of them.
You got the first fruits, you got the first resurrection, and you got the second resurrection
which is after the millennium.
So again, let me say that again, Christ the first fruits, then you have the first
resurrection, what the Bible calls the first resurrection, is the second coming of
Christ when the main bulk of Christians all rise from the dead, and then you have
this post millennial resurrection at the end after Jesus delivers up the kingdom of
the Father.
The same plays at the great white throne of judgment when the dead are delivered up
from death and so forth.
But here's the thing about that, most of those people are unsaved, but obviously
some of them are saved because the Bible says whosoever's name was not found written
in the book of life was cast in the lake of fire, implying that there are some people
whose name is in the book of life that are not going in the lake of fire.
And so here's why that's the gleaning.
If you stop and think about the farming analogy, is that gleaning, why didn't the gleanings
get harvested during the main harvest?
Well, possibly because they weren't ripe yet, they're late bloomers.
Just like the first fruits bloomed early, the gleanings could be some late blooming
agriculture and so when the first harvest came through and picked all the fruit, there
were some that weren't ripe yet, they were late to the party.
And that's what that second resurrection is because if you think about it, after the
second coming of Christ, after the trumpet sounds and Christ comes in the clouds, that's
not the end of human history.
Because after that you have God pouring out his wrath on this earth with the seven
trumpets and the seven vials and all of the cataclysms that we see in the book
of revelation.
And then you also have that whole period of millennium.
And so what about people who get saved after the second coming of Christ?
What about people who get saved later?
They need to eventually be resurrected as well, don't they?
That's what that second resurrection is for.
It's for those people that didn't get picked up the first time because they weren't
born yet or they weren't saved or whatever.
So if you would, go to Revelation chapter 20 and I'll show you this quickly.
If you want to keep your finger in 1 Corinthians 15 and just glance over at Revelation 20.
But the Bible says in Revelation, while you're turning there I'll start reading.
It says, he laid hold on the dragon, verse 2, that old serpent which is the devil and
Satan and bound him a thousand years and cast him into the bottomless pit and shut
him up and set a seal upon him that he should deceive the nations no more till the
thousand years should be fulfilled and after that he must be loosed a little season.
And it's just absurd to claim that we are living in this time right now.
Like the devil's not deceiving the nations right now.
Hello, is anybody home?
Because the devil's deceiving the nations big time right now.
And that's what's so funny, these post millennial, all millennial types will say things
like, well isn't Christ ruling and reigning right now?
But they're kind of missing something, aren't they?
The devil being bound for a thousand years.
And I saw thrones and they sat upon them and judgment was given unto them.
And I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the word
of God and which had not worshiped the beast, neither his image, neither had received
his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands.
And they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years but the rest of the dead
lived not again until the thousand years were finished.
Now notice, if it says the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years
are finished, that means when the thousand years are finished, they're going to live
again.
Isn't that exactly what we saw in 1 Corinthians 15?
Christ the first fruits, after were they that are Christed is coming, then cometh
the end when he delivers up the kingdom.
That's when the people live again.
And so we have the first resurrection.
Now the first resurrection, what the Bible calls the first resurrection, and by the way,
notice that it includes people who got beheaded because guess what, it's after the tribulation.
It's post-trib pre-Rapture, just saying.
So here's the thing about that is that the first resurrection is only saved people.
So unsaved people aren't being resurrected at that time, are they?
It's only saved people.
That's why it says blessed and holy is he that part in the first resurrection on such
the second death hath no power.
You know, it's all saved people, it's all believers, it's all Christians that get resurrected
in that first resurrection.
What about the second resurrection?
The second resurrection is actually a mix because everybody who's dead at that point
rises from the dead, everybody, saved and unsaved like.
And this is exactly what Jesus said would happen in John chapter 5.
He said that there was a coming day when all that are in the graves would hear his
voice and that everyone would be resurrected and that some would be resurrected to everlasting
life and glory and some people would be resurrected to damnation, to everlasting
shame and contempt.
So not only is there a resurrection of the just, there's also a resurrection of the unjust.
There's a resurrection of the saved and a resurrection of the unsaved.
Now again, you have Jesus, the first fruits, then you have the first resurrection, which
is only believers.
Then you have the second resurrection, which is believers who came after the first harvest,
so they're the late bloomers as it were, and every unsaved person who has ever lived
in the history of mankind.
So unsaved people that are dying today, right?
People that are dying today and they're not saved on April 9th, 2023, when are those
people going to be resurrected?
They're going to be resurrected after the millennium at that great white throne judgment,
okay?
And they're going to be resurrected.
Now here's the thing though, they are not going to be brought back to life.
They're not going to live again.
See the Bible said the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years
were finished.
We're talking about saved people who will have a part in the resurrection of life.
But guess what?
There's a resurrection of life, and then there's a resurrection of damnation.
Because what you need to understand is that the word resurrect simply means to rise
again, and that's why when those unsaved people are standing before God in Revelation
chapter 20, are you still there, or did I have you leave?
In Revelation 20, that's why it says in verse 12, I saw the dead small and great
stand before God.
The dead are just, so they're resurrected, but they're still dead.
They're a dead man walking, right?
They're standing there before God, but they're dead.
They're not alive in that sense.
They're conscious, but they're considered dead, okay?
And they're judged by God and then sent to eternal torment in the lake of fire.
And whosoever's name is found in the book of life is of course saved.
And those whose names are not found in the book of life, they're cast into the lake
of fire forever.
So there's a bodily resurrection of the saved, and there's even a bodily resurrection of
the unsaved at the great white throne.
That's why Jesus even said, fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill
the soul, but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
And that reference to hell there is referring to the lake of fire, the final resting place
of hell.
And so back to 1 Corinthians chapter 15, you can see how much great doctrine is packed
into this chapter.
Not only is it a powerful review of the most important fundamental of our faith, which
is the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, but it also sheds a lot of light
on the second coming of Christ, end times, and even the chronology of how these things
are going to take place, what order things are going to happen.
And so the Bible says in verse number 35, some men will say, how are the dead raised
up and with what body do they come?
You idiot.
Sorry, he says, but that's pretty much what he said, he said, thou fool, right?
So I mean, that wasn't just me being a jerk.
You know, if you want to call somebody a jerk, you know, but don't do that because that'd
be blasphemous.
What does it say?
Well, what body do they come, how does that work scientifically?
You idiot, thou fool.
Because a lot of people would say like, well, how can there be a bodily resurrection
if people have just decomposed to the point where, you know, there's nothing there.
What about people who've been cremated or something, right?
And by the way, we as Christians should not practice cremation.
But if a Christian is cremated, guess what?
It's not going to be like, oh, you got cremated, your relatives screwed you, you're
going straight to hell.
Obviously you're still saved, you're still going to heaven, okay, there's no issue there.
But here's the thing about that.
Some people would look at that and say, well, this is a physical impossibility.
Let me tell you about some other physical impossibilities.
Creating the whole universe from nothing, parting the Red Sea, the virgin birth of
Jesus, raising dead bodies back to life, walking on water, you need any more examples
of physical impossibilities?
God specializes in things impossible.
And so it's kind of, you know, Paul is calling you an idiot, even for asking that question,
all right?
Don't even ask that.
He's like, thou fool.
That which thou sowest is not quickened except to die.
And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain,
if any, if it may chance of weed or of some other grain.
But God giveth it a body as it pleased him, and to every seed his own body.
Here's what the Bible is saying.
When you plant a seed, okay, that seed itself, all of the matter involved in that
seed is not necessarily the exact same matter that comes up in the plant.
You know, some of that's going to stay in the dirt, and then it's also going to
draw new material from the dirt itself, right?
And so if you think about it, you plant a little mustard seed and it becomes this
giant tree, that didn't all come from that seed, did it?
That seed just contained the instructions and a little bit of a starter pack to get
it cranking, but where did most of the matter from that tree come from?
That giant tree?
Where did it get most of the matter from?
Wrong.
It got it from the air.
All right.
I was just, sorry, I'm not, I was just messing with you.
I was just trying to hit you with a little science lesson.
It didn't get it from the ground because then there'd be a big hole in the ground.
There's no missing dirt, folks.
I know I'm blowing your mind right now, but trees, trees get the vast majority of
their material from the air because they take carbon dioxide and they take that carbon
and that carbon is what they're built out of, a carbon-based life form.
All right.
That was for free.
So yeah, they, they, they, you're right.
They do take a little bit of stuff from the soil, but the vast majority of what trees
are made of comes out of thin air.
Carbon dioxide.
All right, let's get off that nerdy science stuff.
So the thing about that is that if a person's body has severely decomposed to the point
where it's just, there's nothing there, hey, guess what?
God is able to do this.
You know, who knows?
Maybe he'll just grab one molecule that's still there and just, you know, start with
that one molecule and just build everything else out of thin air.
If he can build trees out of thin air every single day, you know, I'm sure that
God can give it a body as it has pleased him.
Now this is slightly different than the resurrection of Christ because the resurrection
of Christ, the Bible says his flesh did not see corruption.
You know, he's only in there for three days and three nights and so his flesh did
not see corruption.
So his body is just changed, sort of like the people who are alive and remain under
the coming Christ are going to be changed.
Or what if somebody gets buried like the day before Christ returns?
You know, you're not going to have to do as much remodeling of that body as the
guy who died like, you know, 3000 years ago or something.
Okay.
But again, the very fact that the apostle Paul says, but some man will say, how are
the dead raised up and with what body they come down full?
This proves he's talking about bodily resurrection or that question wouldn't even be relevant.
And he says it's going to be a body.
It's a physical body that goes into the ground and it's a physical body that raises up out
of the ground.
It's a flesh and bone body like Jesus had.
It's just not necessarily the same molecules because of the analogy of the seed and the
tree and so forth.
And that's why it says in verse 44, it is sown a natural body.
It is raised the spiritual body.
There is a natural body and there's a spiritual body.
So the natural body, the life of the natural body is what?
The life of the flesh is in the, the blood, according to the Bible, our life force is
found physically in our blood, but in the new body it will not be so.
The new body is a spiritual body, not powered by blood, but powered by the spirit.
That's why the Bible says flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God, but
flesh and bone will inherit the kingdom of God.
Okay, so don't let anybody come at you and say, well, it's not bodily because flesh
and blood.
No, no, no.
Flesh and bone will inherit.
Flesh and blood will not because the natural body is powered by blood.
The spiritual body is powered by the spirit and to be a bloodless person someday.
And so it is written, the first man, Adam was made a living soul.
Verse 45, the last Adam, talking about Jesus, was made a quickening spirit.
And I got to hurry for sake of time, so let's just jump down.
Verse 50, we just talked about flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, neither
does corruption inherit incorruption.
But the Bible says that our body is sown a corruptible body, but it is raised an
incorruptible body.
Verse 53, for this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality.
So when this corruptible shall put on incorruption and this mortal shall put on immortality,
then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in
victory.
Oh death, where is thy sting?
Oh grave, where is thy victory?
The sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the law, but thanks be to God
which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore my beloved brethren, so who's he talking to?
He's talking to saved Christians who are his brethren in Christ.
Be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as
you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.
Why is it not in vain?
Well number one, because your faith is not in vain.
You are saved by the gospel because you believed on the death, burial, and resurrection
of Christ as your ticket into heaven.
As you're saved, your faith is not vain and not only that, whatever you do in this
life is going to matter for all of eternity because you're not going to simply cease
to exist.
The people that you went to Christ are not going to cease to exist.
The people whose lives that you've touched will not cease to exist.
He that is saved, she that is saved, these people will be always forever with the
Lord in heaven.
So this is the cornerstone doctrine of Christianity, the resurrection of Jesus.
Without it, there is no Christianity.
If you remove the resurrection, you don't have another style of Christianity.
You have nothing.
It is the most essential doctrine imaginable and so we need to make sure not to play
with this doctrine.
By the way, when you start playing with the second coming or the bodily resurrection
of the saints, what do you end up doing?
You're actually playing with, it's a domino effect, you end up playing with and tampering
with the most important doctrine.
Because if the dead rise not, well then Christ isn't raised.
It's a package deal folks.
You got to believe that Jesus rose from the dead and you got to believe that we're
going to rise from the dead because these two things are one and the same because we're
in Christ.
That's why we're even going to be resurrected.
Just like our spirit was resurrected the moment we believed in Christ.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for this wonderful resurrection chapter and Lord God,
thank you for the beautiful day that you've given us and thank you for all of the time
that people will be spending with family today and all of the meals that will be enjoyed.
And Lord God, I pray that we would all stop and just wonder and marvel at the amazing
miracle of your resurrection and at the future miracle of our own resurrection.
In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.