On Eagles' Wings Pt 231 — Don Courville

Well, we're glad to be back with you again today, live on Eagle's Wings. And before I forget it, I will say that we did have a new baby last Sunday afternoon, and we named her Hannah Grace. Thank you for your prayers.

It was good to talk with a couple of you, one of you after the message last week and then one through the week. Let's have a word of prayer and ask God to lead us in the direction that he'd want us to go this morning.

Eternal Life Through Jesus Christ

Heavenly Father, we bow in your presence, and we live in your presence. You said you'd never leave us nor forsake us. We thank you for the blessings of life. We thank you that we can know you through the Lord Jesus Christ.

You say in your word, he that has the Son has life, and he that has not the Son does not have life. We pray for those listening that do not have life, that they would come to see that life is not just going to church, not just being baptized, just not doing good works, but it is knowing Jesus.

And this is eternal life, that they might know thee, the only true God, in Jesus Christ your Son. You say in your word that you came to give us life. The Lord Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

And we pray, Father, for the anointing of your Spirit on us. I pray that my mouth would be anointed to speak the things that you want, that our ears would be anointed to hear the things that you want, that we'd be tuned in to the message of the Spirit for the church for this hour.

Father, pray for your blessing on the folks. I pray for those that are hurting and suffering, those that maybe have disease, that they would follow your scriptural guidelines and call for the elders of the church, that they might receive the blessing and encouragement, and possibly if you would desire the healing.

I pray for those that are discouraged, that you would encourage them. I pray for those that are downhearted, that you'd lift them up. I pray for those that have no hope, that you'd give them hope. We thank you for this time of the year when we remember the resurrection of Christ.

And actually, Father, for those of us that live in the power of the resurrection, we experience and celebrate this every day. But we pray that this time of the year would give hope to those that are lonely, to those that see no light at the end of the tunnel, that they be brought to Jesus Christ, who is the light of the world.

I pray, Father, now that we would glory in you and that you would receive the glory. We pray that your word would accomplish that which you please, that it would not return into you void. This is your word, that you've said it.

You said, if any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God. If any man minister, let him do it as of the ability that God giveth. And Father, you said that through this, that you would be glorified.

And this is our prayer, in Jesus' name, amen. Well, I've been having a good time with the Lord Jesus and just trying to stay focused on which direction he wants us to go through the day. I was encouraged this morning by my wife, and I think what I shared with her encouraged her in return, as God is teaching me to spend time with him.

Yesterday, I spent most of the time with the Lord out in my little camper, and then sometimes I go out and spend the whole night just out there. And last night, just before I went to sleep, I was meditating on the Lord and in the Word and in my sleep.

Just before I went to sleep, he brought this passage before me about the potter, how the potter is to be soft and pliable in the potter's hands. And that was just in my mind, that the Lord wants us to be soft and pliable.

And I went in this morning and saw my wife, and she'd encouraged me to spend that night last night with the Lord again, and the baby, when we got this new little baby, and we recognized when this baby sleeps all day, it's going to have an up time and it's during the middle of the night.

And I come in this morning, and she said that she'd prayed those verses about the potter for me. And when I shared how that came into my heart, it just encouraged us. We should be praying for one another continually.

The Resurrection as the Heart of the Gospel

You know, this thing of the resurrection is a tremendous, powerful truth. It is actually the heart of the gospel. I have before me some notes, a study I did a few years ago. I don't know if we'll go over them or not, we'll just see how the Lord leads us.

And I did a study through the book of Acts on the resurrection. You know, the resurrection was the central theme of Acts. This is the thing that got them in trouble, that they preached about, and it was the thing that they didn't want to hear.

The power of the resurrection was demonstrated in their lives, and this is why we don't see a lot of things happening sometimes in our lives. We'll preach about the resurrection, but the power of it is not seen in our lives.

What is seen is the power of self. I was just thinking about a couple passages that Paul wrote that are so central in the Gospels, in the preaching of the cross. One was where he said, I am crucified with Christ.

Now crucifixion does you no good unless there's a resurrection. He said, I am crucified. There came a day when I died. He said there came a day when he died in Christ, and then also a day when he died to self.

He said, I am crucified with Christ. When Christ died on the cross, I died there, you died there in Christ. He said, nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me in the life which I now live in the flesh.

I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. You know what the next verse says? He says, I do not frustrate the grace of God, for if righteousness came by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

You know, I think many times we are frustrating the grace of God. He says, I do not frustrate the grace of God. He recognized that righteousness didn't come through the law. He recognized that righteousness came through the shed blood of Christ and through the death and burial and resurrection of Christ.

Everything came to him that was needed, and it came to us also. And if we cannot save ourselves by our own good works, then we also cannot live a righteous life by our own good works. It is Christ that lives in us.

It is the living presence of Jesus that draws people. I was just thinking last night how the last town we left about a year and a half ago, I guess, we went in there. We didn't know very many people. I think we maybe knew a half a dozen people or maybe up to a dozen.

And when we left, how there was a gathering in the city park, and they'd rented a building, a lot of our friends, and had a going-away party. You know, as you go through life, you should be gathering around you friends that you have made acquaintance with, and it comes, this deepness of the resurrection life of Christ draws people to the Jesus that abides in you.

And actually, there should be in your realm a group of friends, a body of people that your life has impacted on many, maybe have got saved through your testimony, many who have been brought out of the bondage of some kind of prison, they've been set free because of the influence of your life.

I was just thinking about this morning as I was driving in here how Bill Stewart invested his life in my life when we were over in Turkey and we were in the service. He invested his life, he died to his time, to what he would want to do, and invested into me so that I, in turn, could grow in Christ and invest in others.

And Bill works over in, he's a missionary over in Korea, reaching the servicemen, and I was thinking how neat this was, that the Lord allowed me to have an impact, a small impact in another man's life out in Colorado, and he is working with servicemen.

And I don't know where he is for sure, the last time I knew he was working near an army camp. But this is the power of the resurrected life. Actually, the most powerful, I believe, passage on the resurrection life is Romans 6.

Dying to Sin and Walking in Resurrection Life

We should understand Romans 6. We should know it. So many things come in to water down the Word. I was just, maybe if I just took you through Romans 6, with no deep doctrinal dissertation, but just to talk about it a little bit.

And I'd like to share with you also, if we get into a little bit more time, I'd like to share with you about one of the things that has so decimated the power of the resurrection, and it takes away, it waters it down, and this is how Satan has attacked the resurrection.

You know, he attacks, he attacked the birth of Christ, and he's got everybody zeroed in on Santa Claus, Santana. And what's he done to attack Christianity in the area of the resurrection? Has it been the Easter bunny and getting little chicks and focusing in on fertility and eggs and baskets and all that kind of stuff?

That is a deviation from it, but there's been a more subtle attack that we as Christians have gone into. I don't want to get into that with you. It's one of our traditions. And I was just thinking this morning, coming in, how as God has broke me free to be free to Him, many times I've had to walk across the traditions of men, and men don't like to have their traditions trampled on.

It's our traditions, and many times we've lifted them up into the place of almost Scripture, and if we dare to tamper with them, then we get upset. I was remembering how my good friend Wes, my exhorter friend, oh, it must have been about three years ago, he was given the service, and I'm getting a lot of bunny trails on here.

I hope I can get back to where I was supposed to be. But anyway, he was given the freedom one evening, a Sunday evening, to have the service, and the pastor was gone, and everybody came into the church.

It was fun. We really had some fun times together. He is an old cowboy from southeastern Colorado. You never knew when he might come into church with his horse. You never know. He was a wild guy. He loved Jesus and knew how to walk in the power of the Spirit.

But everybody come in one Sunday evening, and the front pews, he'd taken his screwdriver and unscrewed the front pews and made them in a semi-circle up around the front of the church. And I was there early, and it was really neat to watch people come in.

They looked at that, and they all sat in the back of the church like they were scared. Just like cows, they were scared of this crowd up there. Well, we got them all crowded up there in the front, and the point of this thing was is to teach them to learn to be free and to share with one another.

And before the evening was over, there was confession of sins being made to one another. There was an experiencing of the resurrection life of Christ. They were being set free. You see, they were used to doing the same thing over and over and over.

And I recognize we have to be careful with people. We might really get them mad and upset, and the pastor, when he got home, he didn't like that. He was pretty upset over that. But actually, the point was made that they needed to be set free, and actually this is the resurrection life.

You are free, and when you wake up in the morning, you turn your life over to the Lord. You die to yourself. Paul said, I die daily, and you are free for Jesus to work through your life that day. And you will be, as the potter has the clay, you will be soft and pliable in his hands.

My wife said to me yesterday, she's just amazed how my days get rearranged and reordered. We never know what's going to happen. I make my plans and hardly ever have my plans come about. The Lord is my plan, and he should be your plan.

And when I get upset, and if I get a little ouchy or whatever, then that shows that I am taking my eyes off the Lord Jesus. As a matter of fact, this morning at church, if the Lord continues to lead us in this direction, we're going to see how the Lord so tenderly leads us to keep our eyes on him all the time.

And just like Peter, we take our eyes off him, and we begin to sink. Now, Romans 6, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? You see, Paul is saying that the power of the resurrection life delivers you from the power of sin.

Has it had a practical effect in your life? Has this thing of being born again had a practical effect in your life where you've been delivered from the power of sin? You say, well, no, I'm continuing on the way that I have always continued.

When I received Christ, didn't anything much happen different? My friend, the Bible says, the Scripture says, therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. The old things have passed away, and new things have come.

And I remember when that happened in my life. I was shocked. I never did know what the Christian life was. And actually, it is a coming to learn a new life, and the earlier you learn it, the better it will be.

I was thinking about our children just yesterday. Oh, Lord, help them to get a hold of this truth of the cross and the resurrection life. You see, the power of the cross is no good without the resurrection.

And Paul says, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? He says, God forbid, how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? Know you not that so many of us, as we're baptized into Jesus Christ, we're baptized into his death?

He says, don't you know that just as Christ went through a death process, we also have gone through a death process. A death process is not comfortable. We don't like it. The flesh doesn't like it. The Lord Jesus didn't like it any more than you and I like it.

He said, my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. But unless we go through this death process, death to self, identifying with his death, we will not be buried with him as it says, therefore we are buried with him.

By baptism into death, that, like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, and here's the good part, even so we also should walk in newness of life. This is the resurrection life.

He said, for if we have been planted together, I'm in verse 5 of Romans 6, for if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death. You see, we don't have the same death many times. Many people think it's death to crawl on their knees, as I was doing over in Rome, crawl upstairs and then say some prayers at the top to this shrine, or to make some pilgrimage in some kind of unusual way, or to sit up on a pole for 50 years, or whatever.

That's death. No, that's not death. That produces the life of Christ. It's dying to my desires, actually your will, being crucified, having no will of your own. Not my will, but thine be done. The Lord Jesus gave us that pattern.

We go through this death, we enter into the resurrection life, and we walk in this newness of life. This newness of life is not you having some kind of new life. The newness of life is the life of Jesus.

This is what's new. This is why the old things will pass away. Once you taste the life of Jesus, you don't want to go back. Once you've drank old polluted water and tasted some good, fresh spring water, you don't want to go back.

Once you've tasted the power of the Holy Spirit and the resurrection power of Christ in your life, you don't want to go back, and when you do go back, you're miserable. But you know, the sad fact is, many of us do go back.

He says, if we have been planted together, verse 5, in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. He said, we shall be also. So if we're not living in the likeness of his resurrection, then you might ought to ask yourself, and I might ought to consider this every day, have I really identified with the likeness of his death?

Let me tell you, the Bible says, knowing this, he says, knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him. This old power of Satan was crucified. The old man was crucified with him. That, the body of sin, might be destroyed.

That, henceforth, we should not serve sin. If you go on over, a little later on, he says, don't you know that the one you serve, that's the one that's your master? He says, don't you know very clearly, he makes it very clearly, that the one you serve is your master?

He said, know you not that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are to whom you obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness? If there's no resurrection power of Christ in your life, then there's an area where you have refused to obey God in.

I know that when the power of God ceases to work in my life, I have to come back to where I left off, where I disobeyed God, and it may have seemed like just such a small thing. I was thinking about this yesterday.

In walking with Christ, and living in the power of the resurrection life, there are no small things. Everything matters. When the Lord tells you to do some little something, you better do it. You see, many times we think, well, little things don't matter, but it's the little foxes that spoil the vines.

And one of the reasons our churches are in such a mess is because we have not obeyed God on the little things. We think we've got the bases all covered because we've got the big things. We're doing the big things.

We're doing what God wants, but it's the little things that we're not doing that's getting us in trouble. You get enough little things in your life, and they pile up. They begin to weigh. So he says, knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin, for he that is dead is freed from sin.

Are you free from sin? You say, well, I'm struggling. Well then, all struggle is evidence of not being free. All struggle is evidence of having an area in your life of not being yielded to Jesus Christ.

I don't know what yours is. God will tell you what it is. You come, but if you are completely dead to self, dead to sin, and alive to the Spirit, you will be free from the power of sin. Now, if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.

Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over him. See, there's more than having our life free now. We have our life free for eternity. There is the hereafter, and there is the now.

Many of us have focused on the hereafter so much, we've never got the now down pat. We're looking for the sweet by-and-by, but our present is uncomfortable, it's miserable. Now, this isn't to say that we're not going to have problems in life.

I've got just as many problems as you do. I've got just as many, I'll give you some if you don't have enough. That's not the point. It's what do you do with your problems? Who are you letting guide you through your problems?

What are you learning about the resurrection life of Christ, the presence of the Lord through those problems? How are you learning more of the sweetness of God's presence and the divine excitement of His will for your life?

And he says in Romans 7 and verse 9, You know, has there ever come a day in your life when you really just died? Died to self. You came before the Lord, and you say, Lord, I am dead. Now my life will be Christ.

I am totally yielded to you. Has there ever been a day like that? He says, We're going to be talking about reckoning at Maranatha Baptist Church when we meet in Diamond. We're going to talk about this area of counting on it.

Counting on the Lord. And what happens when we don't count on the Lord? You know what happens? I'll give you a little preview. We get hard. We get hard hearted. And when we get hard, we're not restful.

We're not in His rest. He says, As those that are alive from the dead, there is the resurrection principle to be in a practical aspect alive from the dead. And your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.

In verse 14, for sin shall not have dominion over you. This is the law of God for the believer. Sin is not to have dominion over you, for you're not under the law, but under grace. And Paul, he went on to say, what then shall we sin because we're not under the law, but under grace?

He says, listen, God forbids us to live under the dominion of sin. And the reason this is so strong and so emphatic and such a powerful command from God is because it is an absolute contrary contradiction to the resurrection life of Christ.

He delivered us from the penalty of sin and also from the power of sin. Now, in the last few minutes here, and I didn't think I was going to go over time, but I want to share with you just a couple minutes about a tradition that we have.

The Good Friday Tradition and the Timing of the Crucifixion

We have a tradition at Easter that is unscriptural, and it's what I call the Good Friday tradition. Jesus was not crucified on Friday. If you have ever studied your Bible out, you're going to find some tremendous problems.

Jesus was not crucified on Friday. He cannot be in the grave three days and three nights. The Scriptures does not teach that he was crucified on Friday. And, by the way, this is taught in the Old Testament.

The whole basis of it is taught in the Old Testament. It's because of us accepting the tradition of Satan that we will worship the ways of Satan and the ways of man, the traditions of man that he picks up from him.

The Good Friday tradition, Christ was crucified on Wednesday. You look at the Scriptures, you look out the Jewish days, and you'll see that he was crucified on Wednesday. And not only this, Jonah didn't stay alive in that fish.

He died. Jonah was resurrected. The Lord, they ask him for testimony. He says, as Jonah was three days and three nights. He says, that's the way I'm going to be. How was Jonah? Was he alive? How was Jesus?

Did he stay alive in that grave? No, he died, went into the grave, and he did some other things. Went down to Sheol, did some visiting around, set some captives free when he came through. Jonah died. You read Jonah chapter 2, and you'll have the testimony of a man that died.

He said, I am cast out of thy sight, yet I will look again to thy holy temple. He said, for thou hast cast me into the deep and the midst of the seas. The floods can pass me about. All thy billows and thy waves passed over me.

This was the testimony of a drowning man. He said, the waters can pass me about even to the soul. The depth closed me round about. The weeds were wrapped around my head. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains.

He went more than to the bottom of the ocean. He went down into the earth. The earth with her bars was about me forever, yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God. That's a resurrection testimony.

You know, the Jewish day began at sundown and ended at sundown. It was not from midnight to midnight as we do it, as generally observed today. In the Bible, the 24-hour day began in the evening, and this was established in Genesis 1, 4, and 5, and you come on through.

This method is still observed by the Orthodox Jews in their feast days, in their Sabbath days. The first day of the week on which Jesus rose began at 6 o 'clock of our own Saturday evening, and thus Jesus probably rose as soon as sundown.

He came out of that grave. There was no more need for him to stay there, and we'll think that he rose Sunday morning, but he'd probably already been out of the grave about 12 hours by then. But immediately after sundown on Saturday evening, I believe, he came up.

The Empty Tomb and the Sabbath Days

Side 2. Then to dawn toward the first day of the week came Mary Magdalene. That word is in the plural. That means in the end of the Sabbaths, and actually if you'll learn, if you'll study the Old Testament, you'll find out that there were several Sabbath days there.

And this was a special time because this was the Passover time. This was also the year of Jubilee, and the preparation was there. They were preparing for the Passover. The day of preparation would have been Wednesday.

The Passover would have been Thursday. And if you go through the Scriptures, and I'm getting cut a little short this morning on this, and I plan on showing you how the Scriptures, you go through the Scriptures, Matthew 28 and Mark 16, you'll see that when she came to the tomb, Jesus was already gone.

If Jesus died according to the Good Friday tradition and arose on the next Saturday evening, he couldn't have been in the grave three days and three nights. This is why this tradition has come up. It's to attack the validity and the power of Christ.

They put him into the grave just before. They just barely got him in there. The time was squeezing in, Wednesday evening. They got him in. He was in Wednesday evening, Thursday evening, and Friday evening.

And then he arose Saturday evening. He was dead three days and three nights. Now if Jesus died according to the Good Friday tradition and arose on the next Saturday evening, he couldn't have been in the grave three days and three nights.

Now I'm going to give you a little challenge. You do some studying on this. This is important to remember because these four things. One, it's important because on it depends the truthfulness and authority of the Lord Jesus Christ himself.

Another reason it's important, while Jesus was here, his authority as the Son of God was challenged by the Scribes and the Pharisees. They asked for evidence of his authority. And as evidence of his authority, he gave them the testimony about Jonah.

This is why the liberals, you go into the liberal colleges, they hate the book of Jonah. They attack it. Even in secular colleges and schools, they attack the book of Jonah. They say, you don't believe this fish story, do you?

They attack it. But when the truth of it is presented to them, it takes all the water out of their jar. All the steam is out. It's all gone. When you open up the scriptures and you say, listen, Jonah died, they'll say, a man can't stay alive.

But a man can stay alive. It's been proven that men can stay alive. There's one man that had been found after 48 hours that had been swallowed by a fish. This has been done. But for a man to die and come back alive three days later, that's different.

And that's what happened. So while Jesus was here, he gave them this authority. This is in Matthew 12 .38, if you want to look it up. To this Jesus gave the reply, this is Matthew 12 .40, when he referred to being in the earth three days and three nights, as Jonah was three days and three nights in the fish's belly.

Here's another reason this is important. Jesus stakes his authority as the Son of God on being in the tomb for three days and three nights. If he was not, then his authority was no good. This is why Satan's launched such a strong attack against the resurrection of Christ.

Very subtle. Many Christians have followed it by observing this Good Friday tradition. It's originated with a misunderstanding of a statement that the day following the crucifixion was to be the Sabbath.

We think, well, that's Saturday. No, if you go back and you look in the Scriptures, you'll find in Leviticus 23 there were many Sabbath days in the Jewish ceremony year. All were referred to as the Sabbath.

You look at Leviticus 23, 32 and 39. The Sabbath did not always refer to the seventh day of the week. The Sabbath following the crucifixion was the Passover Sabbath. This is where you can go back to John 19 and verse 14.

And it was the preparation of the Passover. This is Leviticus 23, 5. In about the sixth hour, he, Pilate, saith unto the Jews, Behold your king. This was the fourteenth of the first month. John 19, 31.

This Sabbath was a very special high day. It was an unusual Sabbath, not the common weekly Sabbath. As I said, we were moving into the year of Jubilee. Jesus was right on schedule. We are off schedule.

We have taken the traditions of man, and we have missed the powerful point of the resurrection of Christ. When you come around to Saturday, that was the sixteenth. You had the fourteenth, the fifteenth, and the sixteenth.

Matthew 28, 1, the word Sabbath in the Greek is sabbaton. And that literally reads, in the end of the Sabbath days, the whole thing has been messed up in thinking that the Scripture in Matthew meant one Sabbath.

Well, it was after the Sabbath. That had to be Saturday. No, you go back to Leviticus, and it's all laid out very simply for you. Saturday was the sixteenth of the weekly Sabbath. That was the sixteenth of the month.

So, there was no Friday crucifixion, Matthew 28, 1. There was a Wednesday crucifixion. And there was not a Sunday morning resurrection as we would traditionally form, but probably a Saturday evening resurrection.

I mean, if you've been in a prison for three days, and they open the door up, you're going to wait around for a few more hours. Jesus had no more need to wait around. So, the scriptural teaching should be observed and not follow traditions.

This is just one. We have many that we follow as Christians, and these things are designed by Satan to draw us into his church. He's putting together a world church. And we, some, you know, I was just looking and reading, somebody sent me an article on Lent.

Some follow Lent. Now, I'm not a Catholic. I wouldn't be a Catholic. That religion is a mixture of Christianity and paganism that comes back from Babylon. But Lent is a Babylonian practice. Why would a supposedly Christian church follow that?

And there's many other things. Listen, I want God to bless you. I'm sharing these things with you so that you will understand that we must follow the book. If the tradition goes along with the book, the Bible, the Word of God, then that's fine.

God gives us some freedom. It's not all traditions are bad. But if we'll set up traditions that are unscriptural and observe them and pay close attention to them in such ways that we have deep religious ceremonies like the Good Friday tradition, excuse me, then we get ourselves into trouble.

Christ's Victory Over Death

Listen, I want to close off with a little poem, if I can, to have a couple minutes here. This is by Elwood McQuaid. I found this in this magazine. He's with Friends of Israel. But as you get into this week, really focus in on the purpose of the death of Christ and the resurrection.

It was to set you free. It was to deliver you from the power of death. He came to deliver us. And here's a little old poem that Elwood gave to show us how Christ conquered death. We don't have to be afraid of death.

He set us free. And then when I'm done with this, we'll be done. Father, time, met pale King Death sitting by a tomb. Hello, old friend. I guess you're here to seal somebody's doom. You might say that, sly Death replied, a smile slid up his face.