Good morning, everyone. It’s going to be a short message today. We just have a small glass of water here, so I won’t be with you too long.
Today we want to continue with some of these basic lessons that we’ve been talking about. I do give these little outlines out, and they are honestly more than cute. I think that if we can take something out of these messages, it’s often the most simple thought that I keep.
So if we can take this thought—He is risen—with us today, our time will have been well spent. And it’s also so that Jerry Amon has a piece of paper to write notes on, because he’s got notes.
It seems like we’ve done this a number of times, returning to our foundations, and that’s a good thing. I think we need to go back and consider. Brother Kong said at the conference, “Consider.” Today, let us consider: He is risen.
It is a fundamental of the faith. One other thing I wanted to say: as I was preparing for this, it just struck me that the sisters on Tuesday do something we have talked about over the years—they hold the word. They take the message that has come from Sunday, and they return it back to the Lord. They fellowship about it.
I hear these testimonies about ones that were not here on Sunday, or they were teaching, and they go home and listen to it online. It is encouraging. For every sister involved in that, that is encouraging.
Do you know where that came from? “Hold the word.”
“Holding the truth in love.” I do not remember, and that was a legitimate question. Holding the truth in love, out of speaking the truth in love—holding the truth in love.
So this thought of “He is risen” is pervasive in the Bible. His resurrection, and His being raised from the dead, is just pervasive. Let us look at three of the Gospels that say it explicitly.
He is not here, for He is risen.
What got me started on this burden was our Friday-night meeting—the whole scene around the crucifixion, the burial, and then the resurrection, and how key it was.
Do not be amazed; you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who has been crucified.
He is risen; He is not here.
They were looking for that physical body, for something more temporal, but He is risen in spirit.
He is not here, but He is risen.
Praise God, He is risen.
I was raised a Methodist, and we often recited something. What did we recite? The Apostles’ Creed. And that is a good thing. Sometimes we react, because of formality, to things like the Easter song we just sang and the Apostles’ Creed.
This is the Methodist version:
I believe in God the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth;
And in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord,
Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
Born of the Virgin Mary,
Suffered under Pontius Pilate,
Was crucified, dead, and buried;
The third day He arose from the dead;
He ascended into heaven,
And sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
From thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
He is not here. He is risen. Praise God, He is risen and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father.
One thing that we talk about—I am not going to talk about it today—but because He is risen, He sent the Holy Spirit. Remember, He said, “I will send another, a Comforter.” Praise God.
Therefore it is necessary that of the men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us—
beginning with the baptism of John until the day that He was taken up from us—one of these must become a witness with us of His resurrection.
There is a calling on our lives. We feel that need that they were looking for. We are witnesses. By God’s grace, we are witnesses of His resurrection.
These verses kind of bookend the message.
Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?
But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised;
and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain.
Moreover, we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised.
For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised;
and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.
Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.
But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep.
For since by a man came death, by a Man also came the resurrection of the dead.
Remember Dana talked about heaven at the conference—our union with heaven. That is what it is all about. Life overcomes death. Life overcomes death.
Since the fall, we have lived under the curse of death. The enemy would use that to bring us down, to put us under. This whole world system—Brother Kong often says, “I see death. It’s death all around me.”
We can be held by that hopelessness. Max, opening today, talked about how we were helpless, but we were also hopeless. But the hopelessness of this world is not ours, because life has overcome death.
In Hebrews 2, it says that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might deliver those who, through the fear of death, were subject to slavery all their lives.
He has overcome. He has the keys of death and Hades. The enemy does not. The Apostles’ Creed even alluded to that.
This whole world, by its different religions and so forth, is looking for a way out, looking for hope. This hopeless world—Jesus would say to us, as John said in his word, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
The ground of our faith is the Lord’s death, burial, and resurrection. He came that we might have life and have it abundantly—life swallowing up death.
Resurrection life is our birthright. When you are born again, we are born again to a living hope: Christ in us, the hope of glory.
So we are not only to be possessors of resurrection life, of eternal life; we are to be expressors of resurrection life. That was the whole call in looking for that twelfth apostle, who might be witnesses with us of the resurrection.
If you read on in Acts, that witness was way beyond just talking. It was the power of an indestructible life expressed. Think about Peter in those first messages. Something happened. The sermons of Peter were powerful.
Let me tell you what Sparks says about witnesses:
Witnesses are not those who talk about truth, but are witnesses of His resurrection—witnesses of Christ as risen. The New Testament testimony of Jesus is that God raised Him from the dead and that He is alive forevermore. That is the essence of the testimony: a testimony of life. As the light burns, it is a constant declaration of victory, and that a victory over death—death which would seek to quench the light. It burns in the midst of surrounding death, a continuous declaration that death has no power to quench it.
I thought we might look a little bit at the place of resurrection in the story of the Bible.
In the fall, we have the fall. When I started this series, we talked about eternity past to eternity future. So where does this fit? Where does it go from the garden to the New Jerusalem? Resurrection is right in the middle of those two.
It was the Father’s heart that we might find complete rest, supply, and provision in the Lord. But because of the fall, because of independence and wanting to live out from our own strength, there was a fall.
Adam was told he may eat from any tree in the garden, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—good and evil. He was meant to eat from the tree of life. Because of that, he was cut off from God—not only from God’s presence, but from the very life of God.
Therefore the Lord God sent him out from the Garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken.
So He drove the man out; and at the east of the Garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.
Hopeless, helpless—we were hopeless and helpless from that point.
Now there is a recovery of that whole thing in the New Jerusalem.
Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb,
in the middle of its street.
On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month;
and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
Praise the Lord. We are headed there. We may have a different little path here, but that is where we are headed.
Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter by the gates into the city.
And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come.”
And let the one who hears say, “Come.”
And let the one who is thirsty come;
let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost.
Let the thirsty come. Praise the Lord.
Eternity past, eternity future—we are in time. In the middle of time, we have this fact of the resurrection.
We can look at some testimony and fact out of the Bible that this was foretold. The Old Testament foretold the resurrection, but the New Testament also foretold the resurrection. Let us stick with that today.
The Lord understood what was going to happen and where He was going. The Lord knew that on the third day He would be raised up, and He was willing to be obedient to the Father, to go to the cross.
The disciples missed it all through the book of John and in these different Gospels. Peter here—He began to tell them that He must be killed and raised up on the third day.
Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You.”
He did not understand it. So let us not be Peters and misunderstand what the Lord is doing. He has called us to life in the Spirit, a life of resurrection life.
The Jews also missed it. All those days, all the time that Jesus ministered to the Jews, they just missed it.
Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
The Jews then said, “It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?”
But He was speaking of the temple of His body.
The lesson for us is this: the Jews missed this death, burial, and resurrection. May we, in our lives as Christians, not make this a formal thing. May it be a resurrection of life. May we move beyond seeing things externally, in just a form.
It was foretold, and then there was ample evidence—written testimony—of His actual death. He actually died.
We hear about the Passover plot and so forth, but there is so much today that is taken for fact in this world, and who knows what is fact anymore? But this thing is so adequately documented.
Then the Jews, because it was the day of preparation, so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath, asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.
So the soldiers came, and broke the legs of the first man and of the other who was crucified with Him.
But coming to Jesus, when they saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs.
But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out.
And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you also may believe.
Jesus died. He died as a propitiation for our sins, and His physical body actually was dead.
But there is also great written testimony that He has risen, right in the same section of John. Up from the grave He arose, with a mighty triumph over His foes.
Remember, in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul told us that if He has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and we are most of all to be pitied.
Jesus appeared to Mary here. She did not expect to see Him. She did not know that He would rise again.
They were seeing Him here in a resurrected body, and they were not really expecting to see Him. Are we expecting to see Him? He is coming back. Are we expecting to see Him?
Mary was standing outside the tomb weeping; and so, as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb;
and she beheld two angels in white sitting, one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been lying.
And they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?”
She said to them, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.”
She was looking at that physical body.
When she had said this, she turned around and beheld Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus.
Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?”
Supposing Him to be the gardener, she said to Him, “Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away.”
Jesus said to her, “Mary!”
She turned and said to Him in Hebrew, “Rabboni!”
Jesus said to her, “Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.’”
I just wonder if the Lord would say to us today, “John? Kenny? It’s Me. Ryan? It’s Me. I am here. I am alive. I am risen.” Put your name in there.
“Mary?” Every one of us. “Lori?” To me, He has risen from the dead.
When therefore it was evening, on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
And when He had said this, He showed them both His hands and His side. The disciples therefore rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
So the disciples saw Him risen from the dead. Mary saw Him, the disciples saw Him, and my favorite is Thomas. Thomas saw Him.
What is Thomas’ nickname? Doubting Thomas. We always think that was kind of disparaging. I think it is really good. I think it is good that Thomas could say, “I’ve got to see it. I’ve got to see it myself.” He did not take it secondhand. He was not there.
So he said, “Guys,” and he was honest, “I can’t buy all this.” But let us read the exchange with Thomas in John 20:24–29.
But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.
The other disciples therefore were saying to him, “We have seen the Lord!”
But he said to them, “Unless I shall see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.”
Could you do that? Could you put your fingers in there?
And after eight days again His disciples were inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst, and said, “Peace be with you.”
Then He said to Thomas, “Reach here your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand, and put it into My side; and be not unbelieving, but believing.”
Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!”
Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.”
We live in a day when we do not see with our physical eyes. God would have us see with the eyes of our heart. Up from the grave He arose. He is alive. He is in our midst. He is with us, and we need to know Him in real practice and power.
Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand,
by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,
and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep;
then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles;
and last of all, as it were to one untimely born, He appeared also to me.
Last of all, as it were to one untimely born, He appeared also to me. Is that our testimony? What is our testimony? Have we seen Him? Are we seeing Him? Are we walking with Him? Praise the Lord. He is risen from the dead.
There is tons of testimony that He is risen from the dead. I think there is an application to this resurrection.
There is a personal application, as Sparks said. We are to live out—not from our old life, not from that tree, the knowledge of good and evil. We have been blessed with the capacity to live out from resurrection life, from the living Lord’s life within us.
Galatians 2:20—Paul said, “It is no longer I that live, but Christ that lives in me.” I guess we should say, “I have been crucified with Christ.” That natural man has been dealt with. It is no longer that man in charge and control, but Christ in me.
His intention was that our lives would be a testimony of the risen Lord.
Brother Sparks again talks about the time and situation in which we live, that we are in difficult days. Instead of just coming to the end of ourselves, we are to come to the beginning of Christ.
Sparks says:
It is the Lord Himself, and for this to be so, it has to be against a background of natural inability. The power of His resurrection is a law of union with Christ from beginning to end. Days of terrific pressure are upon the Lord’s people. The enemy is taking little off-time. The only sufficiency is the Lord Himself as our life.
Might we really come to the end of ourselves. I hate to say that—it might be costly—but might we come to the end of ourselves. The end of ourselves is the beginning of Christ. Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world.
We talked at this conference about running with endurance, fixing our eyes on Jesus. The only hope for enduring till the end in these days is Christ in us, the hope of glory. Thank God, He has risen from the dead.
I think it is so interesting. It is always encouraging to me—Paul, in a letter to the Philippians, this man who had gone so far and was such a pillar. What could he say in Philippians 3:10, at the end of his days, in prison?
That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.
That I might come to the end of myself and know the power of His resurrection, in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection. Did he not know the power of His resurrection? Certainly he did. Certainly he did.
But not as a point in time—as a way of life, that he might know. He was there in that terrible situation, but in the midst of these situations, “that I might know Him in the power of His resurrection.”
I believe the Lord would do a deep work in each one of us, to be not just possessors. First of all, we have to know that we possess the Christ-life in us, but that we might express it.
That expression might not be a big, elaborate preaching from the housetops. It might be something that registers to the principalities and powers.
A woman who had no visible testimony during her days, let’s say, who has probably had as much effect on this assembly as anyone, was a woman in China who had failed and gotten kicked out of the China Inland Mission. I forget what she was—Margaret Barber.
She went back a hidden one, and she had great effect on us. She taught up Watchman Nee. Not to lift up Watchman Nee, but she brought all that great teaching from England and was able to distribute it faithfully, in a hidden way, to Brother Nee.
Then Stephen Kong and Dr. Kinnear wrote that stuff down and brought it back to us. So we do not have to be a big person to be a witness of the resurrection—a powerful witness of the resurrection.
That is an individual application. There is also a corporate application.
We have heard this before, but Luke, at the beginning of Acts, said he wanted to continue to relate all that Jesus began to do and teach. The Lord had gone. He was not here anymore. But through a spiritual body, the Lord continues to want to display Jesus.
We are called to that. That is our calling: to be witnesses of the resurrection in life as an assembly. We are called to be living stones. So it is a big calling.
Sometimes I think we labor over this thing: “What is the testimony? Testimony, testimony.” There is a testimony, but it is not a formal thing. It is not just a teaching. It is a spiritual testimony. It is a spiritual expression of a corporate man in the heavenlies.
And to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for the ages has been hidden in God who created all things;
so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.
This testimony of Jesus in a corporate man registers to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. No wonder it is a trial. No wonder it is so challenged.
Our gathering together as the body of Christ, under the blood, under the headship of Christ, registers in the heavenlies.
If I can quote Brother Sparks again:
It is a testimony of an unfailing life, an undying life, an all-sufficient life. As the light burns, it is a constant declaration of victory, and that a victory over death—death which would seek to quench the light. It burns in the midst of surrounding death, a continuous declaration that death has no power to quench it.
In Matthew 16, the Lord asked the disciples, “Who do you say I am?” Of course, Peter’s response was, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Our Lord’s response was, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood has not revealed this to you.” And He said, “Upon this testimony I will build My church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”
The testimony that the church is built on is Jesus Christ and who He is: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” That is what the church is built on—not upon a common understanding and a teaching. “Thou art the Christ.”
Blessed are you, Simon—Jerry—Barjona. But the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.
One last thing is this: the gates of Hades. I think we need to be very wise. In these mundane days, mundane days at the end of time, we need to realize the gates of Hades would attempt to prevail against our life individually, and certainly our life corporately.
Paul gives us a great word after the testimony in Ephesians 3. He gives us a word of encouragement.
Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might.
Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world-forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.
That armor is a defensive thing. We need to be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might, and realize who we are and where we are.
We are born-again Christians, meant to be living out a testimony of Christ in us. Everything would come against it. Natural life would come against it. Our relationships, this world, would try and kill us.
But we are meant to be recipients and witnesses of the resurrection. We are certainly meant to be witnesses of the resurrection in a corporate way.
If you are feeling separate, if you are feeling cut off, if you are feeling antagonized over gathering together, it is not right. He has called us to be witnesses of His resurrection and to continue on in all that Jesus began to do and teach.
Let me just summarize some main points, and then we can close.
The story in Revelation 12 of the man-child talks about how they overcame by the blood of the Lamb, true, and the word of their testimony. What is their testimony? Christ in me, the hope of glory.
Their testimony—we think it is going to be a big thing—but it is going to be, “No. Jesus, I am born again to a living hope through Jesus Christ, and I will go through and live out from that resurrection life.”
Lord, we thank You for keeping us these days. Lord, I thank You for Your resurrection.
Lord, I thank You that we are not left on earth to tough it out, to be overcomers in some kind of natural strength. But we are to be those that are possessors and expressors of the Christ-life in us.
Have mercy on us. Grant us grace not to shrink back in these days, to be strong in the Lord, in the strength of His might. We pray in Jesus’ name.