The Resurrection & the Believer — Charles E. Fuller

Christian Heritage Ministry, in cooperation with Fuller Seminary, proudly presents the Old-Fashioned Revival, a broadcast of the Gospel with Dr. Charles Eagle.

Sunshine time here in the Long Beach Misfile Auditorium, and I want this wonderful group that has gathered here today to stand now and sing that beloved chorus, Heavenly Sunshine. I bet there's some 3 ,500 people here today on this Easter Sunday.

All right, everyone standing, please, and sing through Heavenly Sunshine, and turn around.

And shake hands with those above you. All right, that's fine, but that's just a good warmer upper.

The Gospel Broadcast and the Salvation of Listeners

So let's all sing into the microphone this time. Off to the friends in Radiolab. All right, thank you very much, and you may be seated. Friends, we want to tell you again what an inspiration it is to us to receive your wonderful letters of encouragement, urging us to continue to proclaim the good news that Christ died and rose again, so that all that will might be saved.

Your faithful cooperation in this ministry makes it possible for us to hold forth the good news over these many stations from.

Week to week. So we will be looking for your letter this week. Just before Mrs. Fuller reads.

Hymns for Those Facing Trials and Death

From the letters, I think it would be wonderfully sweet of you all to sing that chorus in the sweet by and by. Would you love to sing that old song? Sing it for those that are on the sunset of life. For those that perhaps are just about ready to walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

There are lots of discouraged and hearts out in the radio audience. Many are going through deep waters and deep trials and fiery testing, and I'd like to have this great audience here at Long Beach just to sing it for those that are going through the hard experiences all together.

Letters from Missionaries and Radio Listeners

Greetings to you, friends. This is an interesting little magazine clipping that came to us evidently from missionaries in Belgium. Midnight church service. Thursday midnight. We rub our eyes, grab our bathrobes, and grope around in the dark until we find the door, and then we hurriedly shuffle out into the hall and down the stairs.

No, it's not a fire. We're going to hear a church service. We are virtually starved for an American service, so each Thursday at midnight we join the friends downstairs around their radio and listen to the old-fashioned revival hour.

We cannot tell you how good it is to hear our old familiar hymns and music, and most of all to be able to understand every message, every word of the message, without bothering to translate it. That's interesting, isn't it?

The good letter comes from missionaries in northern Nigeria, West Africa, saying that the broadcast comes in very fine and clear there, and it means so much to them so far from home. A lady very ill in Switzerland writes how she looks forward every Thursday night to the broadcast.

It comes there from 12 midnight to one o 'clock, but she hears it and finds great inspiration. And then a man writes from England that he accepted Christ as Savior the first time he heard the old-fashioned revival hour.

Returning home late at night, a singer on the stage, he just turned on the radio and heard the way of salvation made plain, accepted Christ, and he's so glad that he did listen that night. An Irish lad 19 years old writes in the breezy way of youth his appreciation of the hour.

Dear Dr. Fuller, for a year I have wanted to write you, and now I'm going to do it. All the Christians here are so glad about your radio service. In this area, about six miles radius, we hear nothing but that program on Thursday night from Luxembourg.

And Charles E. Fuller seems as well known as our next-door neighbor. Heavenly sunshine has become a hit tune among the Christians here. May God reach through you the ears of those who otherwise would never hear of salvation.

A lady writes from Pennsylvania. Our son Keith is stationed in Greenland in the Air Force, and he writes us that he often hears Reverend Fuller of California over the short wave, and he says we like it.

So you see, the lady continues, so you see God is using your voice, Mr. Fuller, a far ways, and our servicemen particularly do need it. And then this last letter is from a serviceman who writes from a hospital in Colorado.

Dear Mr. Fuller, I thank my Lord I can hear my favorite program, though I have to sneak to do it. After nine, lights out and radios off in this hospital. But I put my little radio under my pillow, and I really drink in the whole service.

The first time I heard of you was in Korea, when a friend sent me a copy of your heart to heart talks. That is such a helpful little paper. Please pray for us in the hospitals and for those men on the battlefields and elsewhere.

And that is all for today, friends. Oh.

Prayer: Newness of Life Through Christ’s Resurrection

Of number 113. Alas, and did my Savior bleed, and did my sovereign die, would he devote that sacred head for such a worm as I. Remain standing for prayer. Remain standing for prayer, please. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you that because Christ rose from the dead, that thou hast given to us who believe on him the power to walk in newness of life.

And Father, we thank thee also that our hope of immortality and resurrection does not base itself simply upon our fickle fancy, but upon the fact that Jesus Christ rose again from the dead. And Father, we're thankful that he who said, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest, did rise from the dead.

And Father, we pray that those who feel under a loathe of sin or under a loathe of anxiety and worry, that they may learn to commit everything unto thee and to believe in thy Son, Jesus Christ. We pray especially for our servicemen today that thou wilt be with them and bless them.

Bless those that are sick and wounded. Bless likewise those that are out on the battlefront today. And be especially with those of their loved ones who are at home here in America. We pray also, Lord, in these closing days that thou wilt bring a great revival across the land.

We pray that many may turn to Christ in this year. And we pray especially that thou wilt bless the colleges and universities of America. And in these days, many may turn to Christ and find him to be a live option.

The Resurrection of Christ and the Resurrection of Believers

For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Of the bodily resurrection of Christ from among the dead, and as a result of that, second, the false teaching concerning the resurrection of the bodies of believer from the dead.

In 1 Corinthians 15, the Holy Spirit, speaking through Paul, sets forth God's eternal truth concerning the resurrection of the body. First, of Christ's bodily resurrection, and then second, the resurrection of all true believers' body from the dead.

The line of teaching or false teaching prevalent in the early church in reference to the resurrection went something like this. If the body be not raised, then was Christ's body not raised. Then the resurrection was not a fact.

And if the resurrection never occurred, then the redemption of man, which Christ came to accomplish, he failed to perform for his resurrection, was a demonstration of the perfection of his work on Calvary's cross.

If Christ were not risen, sin was not put away. The gospel was not true. Our faith is then vain, empty, void, useless. The apostles were false witnesses, the believers of all men most miserable. Their loved ones, whose body had fallen asleep, had perished eternally.

That's the line of false teaching. And so, in 1 Corinthians 15, the apostle first defines and declares the gospel, and that that gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation, rests upon two great eternal foundation stones.

First, Calvary's cross, where Christ bare our sins in his own body on the tree, and second, upon the bodily resurrection of Christ, the first roots from among the dead. And after declaring that fact of Christ's resurrection, the Holy Spirit then proceeds to unfold the teaching concerning the resurrection of the bodies of believers.

So we read, two questions are asked, very pertinent questions, and very important questions, and very interesting questions. How are the dead raised up, and with what body, or what kind of body do they come?

And the balance of chapter 15, from verse 35 to the end, is devoted to answering these two important questions. How are the dead raised up, and with what kind of a body do they come? But before we find God's answers to these questions, may we make it very, very, very plain that the teaching herein set forth does not apply to the unsaved and their bodies.

Now, mark that down. He's giving instructions here in the 15th of 1 Corinthians to the members of the body of Christ, all truly born-again believers. 1 Corinthians 15 does not instruct us as to the resurrection of the wicked dead.

The Two General Resurrections and Final Judgment

Briefly and quickly, God's Word sets forth very clearly that there will be two general resurrections. The first resurrection of those who die in the Lord, or the resurrection of the bodies of all true believers.

And this resurrection will take place when Christ comes for His own. The second resurrection in point of time, at least, is a thousand years later, when all the wicked dead will be raised. All who have died in their sins, unrepentant from the days of Adam and down to the end of time, will be raised and judged according to their sinful and damnable works, and then cast into the lake of fire which burneth forever.

Revelation 20 verses 11 to 15. Now, the wicked dead at that time, at the second resurrection, will be, listen carefully, will be reunited to their sin-laden, sin-cursed bodies remaining throughout the eternal ages to come.

Filthy, vile, sinful, unrighteous, no second chance, no chance of escape, and the spiritual condition of every man at the time of death is fixed once for all, for all the eternal ages to come. Let's meditate, however, upon the brighter side and find the answers to the two questions that are put forth in verse 35 of 1 Corinthians 15.

How are the dead raised up, and with what kind of body do they come? The unrighteous shall perish, flee away from the presence of God. Keep always in mind that God is revealing truth concerning the resurrection of all believers, those who have died in the Lord.

The Believer’s Body as the Temple of the Holy Spirit

As I have thought through and re-read 1 Corinthians again, I have been struck with the many occurrences of the word body, B-O-D-Y. Forty-four times in 1 Corinthians this word occurs, and I believe it is the essential key that unlocks this marvelous epistle.

For example, in 1 Corinthians 6, God warns the against the sins committed in the body, and then closes that great chapter by saying, Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit? And any man that will defile that temple, God will deal with you.

And then in chapter 7, instructing those who are united in the holy bonds of marriage on the proper use of the Bible, of the body. And then in chapter 9, Paul says, I keep my body in subjection, lest at any time, having preached to others, I might become cast away, set on the sidelines, not usable.

Chapter 10, all the believers are members of Christ's body. Chapter 11, instructing believers relative to the Lord's supper to be discerning concerning the Lord's body. That is, fellowship with those that are like mine, that are real members of the body of Christ, and have no fellowship with the works of darkness.

Chapter 12, members all one in Christ, yet differently placed in Christ's body. Now, how are the dead raised up? And we might add, when? Bear in mind that all this is in reference to the bodies of those who have died in the Lord.

Death, the Intermediate State, and the First Resurrection

Now, when death, as we speak of it, comes to a believer, and this last enemy that will be put under Christ's feet, someday has done his deadly work, what happens? The soul and spirit depart to be with Christ, which is far better, absent from the body, at home with the Lord.

And the earthly tabernacle in which that person lived so many years, that earthly tabernacle is laid away in the grave. Note now, please, the tabernacle, the body, is laid away in the grave to sleep. No such thing as soul sleep in God's word, and that body is to sleep until the morn of the first resurrection.

Now note, 1 Thessalonians 4, 13. How are the dead raised? For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye saw her not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, which is the basis of the gospel, even so them which also sleep in Jesus will God bring with him, that we which are alive and remain under the coming of the Lord shall not precede them which are asleep.

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall arise 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.

The Rapture and the Transformation of the Believer’s Body

Wherefore, comfort one another with these words. How is he going to do it? Listen, the same mighty power that brought the Lord Jesus from the dead, that same mighty power will be wrought in us who believe when Christ comes for a go.

When that last soul is saved that completes that body composed of the called out ones, he's coming. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be chained in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trump.

For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be chained. And then in Philippians, the third chapter, verse 21, a very precious passage of scripture, how that the Lord is coming someday, here it is, who shall fashion this body of our humiliation, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body.

The Nature of the Resurrection Body

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, our bodies will be chained. Now, the second question briefly, what kind of a body will a believer come for? First Corinthians 15, from verse 35, answers this question.

This body, when death takes place, will be sown in corruption. It is raised in incorruption. And so we read that corruption must put on incorruption. The second contrast, it is sown in dishonor. It is raised in glory.

Beloved, it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. It is sown a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body. The third appearance in the twenty-first chapter.

Oh, it's marvelous how he came and he walked and he talked with his disciples in his spiritual body, and then suddenly out on the hills and the slopes of Mount Olive, as he was talking to his disciples, we find these words.

And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly towards heaven, as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, and they said, This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manners you've seen him go into heaven.

So, supposing death comes to you if you're in Christ Jesus, you'll depart to be with Christ, which is far better, absent from the body at home with the Lord, clothed upon with the eternal house, not made with hands eternal in the heavens.

Your body will be laid away to sleep until the morn of the first resurrection, and then you'll become clothed upon with that glorious body, like under his eternal glorious body. This is only to those that are in Christ Jesus.

The Call to Believe in Christ and Receive Salvation

To you outside of Christ, there's no hope. You're without God and without Christ. It'll be the blackness of eternal separation forever, unless now you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. He's not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, and whosoever will may come.

Let's bow our heads in prayer, no one stirring, please. Every head bowed, serious before God. Are you a member of the body of Christ? If not, you're lost, dead in trespasses and sin. But God says, come now, come all ye labored and heavy laden, I'll give you rest.

Will you come? For him that cometh, I will in no wise cast out. To you in the radio audience, kneel where you are, look up into the Father's face and say, God, be merciful to me, a sinner, and save me for Christ's sake.

God will hear your prayer and receive you. How many in this wonderful, visible audience at Long Beach will quickly put their hands up and say, Brother Fuller, pray for me. God bless you. God bless you.

I need Christ as my personal Savior today. God bless you. God bless you over there. Anyone else in the lower floor? God bless you back there. Hands going up, up in the balconies to the right. Anyone up there?

Put your hand up. Yes, God bless you. The balcony to the rear. Yes, several hands. The balconies to the left. We'll continue. Yes, God bless you. God bless you. We'll continue the altar call in a few moments.

Every head bowed. This is Charles E. Fuller bidding you goodbye and God's richest blessing upon you.