Believe, then do (Part 2)

Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Avendroff. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the Scriptures, verse by verse, with No Compromise.

The Futility of Faith Without the Resurrection

Secondly, the second implication of denying the resurrection of Jesus and every body. The second implication is your faith is in vain, and you can just read that in the rest of verse 14. Just kind of letting the text preach.

Faith is in vain. Do you see that in verse 14? If Christ has not been raised, if the Messiah is still dead, your faith is, and again with emphasis on in vain. The way that's written is that's highlighted.

It would be yellow highlighted. Your faith is in vain. Empty, null, empty set. Zed, void of effect, of no purpose. Can you imagine if you deny the resurrection of Jesus, your faith is in vain because it has the object, your faith has the object of a dead Savior.

And you know what that means? What are the implications? It means you have to work for your salvation. You have to be good. Holy good. Totally good. Absolutely good. You have to earn your way to heaven.

And you know, here's the bad news. Even if you're resolved today to never sin again in your entire life, one of those sins in your past would be enough to damn you. And Paul says without the risen Savior who's conquered your sin, your faith is empty, fruitless.

I need perfection now. Hebrews 11 says now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Paul says you deny Jesus a resurrection, your hope is a figment of your peyote smoking.

It's just some kind of opium dream. You just made it up. Go to some sweat tent and walk out and say, you know, this is what I think I should do. Paul goes on. It's like, this is, this is, I should call this like the boa constrictor effect of Paul.

This is the anaconda where if that thing was wrapped around you and you breathe in just a hair, what does it do? It just constricts more so that your air is restricted. Thirdly, Paul says negative consequence of denying the resurrection is we apostles then misrepresent God.

And so does every other teacher too for that regard. If you ever picked up the Bible and taught something, you've misrepresented God too. If the resurrection of Jesus isn't true. Verse 15, we are even found.

Now remember beloved, when you read the word, we, you have to be careful and not default to you and Paul, right? We Paul and I, we, the church of Bethlehem Bible church, you have to just think through it.

And so Paul has already said, I've received this gospel from Jesus and we've, we've passed it down to you. We apostles teach this. This is uniform doctrinal teaching from the apostles. So that's what he means here.

We apostles, and of course it would be us too if we ever taught the Bible, but the context is we apostles are even found to be misrepresenting God. And yes, it's better here to be false witnesses. This is court language.

You swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. So help me God. I do, but I'm going to lie and I'm going to be a perjurer. If the resurrection isn't true, Paul isn't an apostle, he's a false apostle.

Misrepresenting God because we testified, can you imagine under oath before God about God that he raised Christ whom he did not raise. If it is true that the dead are not raised, Paul is not going to let them get off the hook.

Some of you deny the resurrection. If you do deny the resurrection, then when I lived among you and poured my life out to you and you saw my life, it's not really a good life that you saw. I'm an imposter.

I'm a fraud. I'm a charlatan. I'm telling you the wrong thing. Paul moves from being a murderer and God makes him into a liar. The Bible teaches that Paul was a murderer and then he was an apostle. I wonder how God thinks of people standing up saying things for him and about him that aren't true.

I think God likes that, standing up. By the way, if you ever teach the Bible, you realize the weight of that when it says in James chapter 3, let not many of you be what? Teachers, for you incur the stricter judgment.

Standing up. Can you imagine? I mean, I love my job, but if you want to pray for me, pray for me as I stand under the weight of God says to you, thus says the Lord. That's why I could get up and talk in front of a hundred surgeons and not say, not feel any pressure, except, you know, I want to look good in front of these guys and sell my equipment, guys and ladies, but then the first time I ever had a Bible study at my home with two people, one other couple and Kim, and I was teaching Ephesians, I was scared out of my mind.

By the way, if you teach the Bible and you're not scared, you shouldn't teach the Bible. Here's what God says. Now, for Paul, the argument is this. If Jesus hasn't been raised from the dead, we apostles and everybody else says Jesus has been raised from the dead.

God says so Deuteronomy 18. But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name, God says that I have not commanded him to speak or who speaks in the name of other gods. That prophet shall die. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God, and it's more fearful to fall into the hands of a living God when you've been lying on his behalf.

Not only Paul would be considered a liar, but Jesus would be the arch liar. Jesus said in Luke 18 to the men before he died, everything that is written by the prophets about the son of man will be fulfilled.

He will be delivered over to the Gentiles. They will mock him and insult him and spit on him. They will flog him and kill him. And on the third day, he shall what Jesus said? Rise again on the Emmaus road.

Jesus opened their minds so they could understand the scriptures and told them this is what is written. The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations beginning at Jerusalem.

If Jesus hasn't been raised from the dead, Paul is a liar. The apostles are liars. Jesus is a liar. And the Old Testament scriptures are lies too. He's untenable. You should ask yourself the question, your home church, your home group, your home ministry, the people you listen to on the radio and the TV, if the doctrine of Jesus goes out the window, the resurrected Jesus, could that ministry continue?

Because if it could, you ought not to be watching them. Joe Osteen does not need a resurrected Savior to charm the money out of your pockets. He doesn't need a resurrected Jesus to be good. Do good. God wants you to succeed.

But for Paul, if Jesus hasn't been raised from the dead, we need to have some nightline expose on just the fraudulent charlatan Christianity throughout the centuries who have bamboozled millions out of more than their money.

Christianity isn't good advice. We don't need anyone to tell us to love our husbands, to love our children, to love our wives, to be good neighbors, to be good moral citizens. But you need a resurrected Jesus to have good news about sins forgiven, declared right before God on the basis of another.

God raised Jesus from the dead to vindicate Jesus' words, it is finished. Jesus not raised from the dead, two things should go through your mind. If Jesus wasn't raised from the dead, one, Jesus sinned because the wages of sin is what?

Death. He died for his own sin. Option two, Jesus is not raised from the dead. The Father didn't say amen to I am finished. Excuse me, it is finished. He wasn't finished. The unbelievers say he's finished.

Jesus is raised from the dead to confirm and affirm I finished the work you gave me. And so if Jesus isn't raised from the dead, he either lied or the Father did not think the sacrifice was a sweet smelling aroma.

Can you just imagine getting up talking for God and it's not true? Paul says, I'm misrepresenting God. That's a huge thing. Listen to Jeremiah. This is how God thinks of people who speak for him and they don't speak for him.

For who among them has stood in the counsel of the Lord to see and hear his word? Behold, the storm of the Lord, wrath has gone forth, a whirling tempest. It will burst upon the head of the wicked. Context is people who are speaking for God who aren't speaking for God.

The anger of the Lord will not turn back until he has executed and accomplished the intents of his heart. I send these prophets. I did not send these prophets, but they ran. I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied.

Jeremiah goes on to say, speaking for God, behold, I am against the prophets, declares the Lord, who steal my words from one another. Behold, I'm against the prophets, declares the Lord, who use their tongue and declare, declares the Lord.

Behold, I'm against those who prophesy lying dreams, declares the Lord, and who tell them and lead my people astray by their lies and by their recklessness. When I did not send them or charge them, so they did not profit, this people at all, declares the Lord.

Paul says, if I say Jesus isn't raised from the dead, I misrepresent God. And verse 16 says, and if dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. I remember deep reading 2 Peter during scripture reading several weeks ago, 2 Peter chapter 2, all those false prophets, Paul would be one.

He would be like a waterless spring. He would be spouting loud boasts of folly, and he would be promising freedom while he, in fact, was still enslaved. I mean, the favorite verses of the Bible turn into nothing.

Because Christ does live, we too shall live, John 14. Acts 5, the God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you put to death by hanging him on a cross. He is the one whom God exalted to his right hand as a prince and as a savior to grant repentance to Israel and the forgiveness of sins.

But if Jesus hasn't been raised from the dead, it's all just a big farce. Proverbs 19, two times it says within four verses, a false witness will not go unpunished. The fourth negative implication is found in verse 17.

If you say there's no resurrection of the dead, let alone Jesus from the dead, you are still in your sins. Verse 17, for if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins.

Notice the personal language Paul uses there, the personal pronouns. They're plural, but within the plural body there at Corinth, there are individuals. And this could be true for you singularly or plurally.

If Christ has not been raised, you and your faith is futile, and you sitting here right today are still in your sins that you have committed. It's either the anaconda effect or it's the noose getting tighter around the neck.

Now verse 14 used the word empty, and it meant null, void. Here he uses the word futile. Sometimes it's still translated empty, but it's a different word, and it means aimless. Can you imagine if Jesus' words and actions aren't true, I'm going to raise myself from the dead, I did rise from the dead, then what's said of unbelievers is true of us.

You shall die in your sins. How would you like to die in your sins? I know people on their deathbed, and a good thing to ask the person is, are you afraid to die? Maybe a better question would be to an unbeliever, are you afraid to die and then bear your sins for all eternity?

What does Psalm 130 say? If thou, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? That's why we need a Savior. Who can stand in light of the thrice holy God with sin? Look at that refrain in verse 17.

At least it's a refrain in my mind. You're still in your sins. You're still in your sin. You're still in your sin. I don't want to be still in my sin. I want to be forgiven. Just think if the forgiveness declared to you by Almighty God through His word is fake.

Remember those sins you did? Remember those sins that you don't really want to bring up anymore because you're racing this way. But if you're racing this way to a dead Savior, then you better go rehash those sins over again in your mind because you're going to pay for them.

Who wants to pay for their own sins? We need a Savior. And without the resurrection, John Stott said, there was no ray of light, no flicker of hope, no prospect of rescue. These verses are all lies. My favorite verses are all lies.

1 Peter 2. He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross. Lies. One of my favorite verses, 1 Peter 3. Christ died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust. False. 2 Corinthians 5 .21. He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

Fairy tale. Galatians 3. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. Made up. Hebrews 9. Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin to those who eagerly await him.

Sham. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Even the man who was among women the greatest, he was a fraud. Can't take away sins if you're a dead savior. See, for Paul, this can't be true.

Not because he's trying to wish it to be something else, but because he knows and he has seen and he's been commissioned. It goes on. Fifth and finally for today, even though Paul gives six, the fifth negative implication, our consequence to this disastrous truth, which is no truth at all, is found in verse 18.

If you deny the resurrection of Jesus and every body, then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. Verse 18. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. This is conclusion language he uses in the Greek.

As a result, is what he means by then. Now some of you here certainly have had loved ones who have died. I know personally many of you have loved ones who have died. And for some of us, by the grace of God, we have loved ones in our family who have died trusting in Christ Jesus.

But if the resurrection isn't true, those people that you want to see again in heaven, those people that you've buried and you've realized that on their lips has been for me to live as Christ and to die again, dying on their lips with my mother's words, absent from the body, present with the Lord.

It's a farce. You deny the resurrection of God, the son, then the people that you love who have professed Christ are dead and gone and rotting are worse. This is why Paul has exercised on this. Because even here, do you see what his language, the euphemistic language of fallen asleep?

We've seen that in 1 Corinthians a lot, chapter 7, chapter 11. Here in chapter 15 used four times. 1 Thessalonians 4. Paul takes the sting off the death of a believer by calling the believer dead, but with the words fallen asleep.

Because when you look at a body and it looks it's dead, it looks like the person sleeping. Because for the Christian, for everyone, they'll be raised from the dead. But for the Christian, especially, he'd be raised from the dead to go be with the Lord.

And so even this euphemistic language, Paul, why bother? These people who are falling asleep, they're dead. It's like when you bury a cat or a dog. I know we're sad. I hate to think about when I have to bury my dog.

I won't let you know about it, but I'll just tell you ahead of time. I'll cry like a baby. It's my dog. I love my dog. I know your dog doesn't have a soul, but mine does. No, but when you, you know, it's like when I was growing up.

I wasn't growing up. A kid down the street was growing up, and I was just a brand new seminary student, and this mom comes down the street and says, you know, our cat just died, and I don't have a husband here, and I've got this son, and could you do a memorial service for the cat?

You're a pastor. I said, well, what's the cat's name? Trying to stall. What's the cat's name? Jumps a lot. Okay. Well, you show that you're made in the image and likeness of God because you name things, and you are sovereign, and in your sovereign naming, you call it jumps a lot.

There's more to that story, but I can't tell it right now. Let's just get back here. Well, I will tell this for a point. If Jesus hasn't been raised from the dead, then there's nothing left of your family members except what you remember seeing them in the tomb and how they looked and how they all eventually smell.

I actually found jumps a lot dead and didn't know what to do because I had to quick go get in the operating room, and I could not be late, and so there's this dead cat laying in my front yard. I don't know whose it is, and so I quick put it in a garbage bag and then put it in a box.

I thought, I'll have to get home and deal with it because I've got to be in the OR. And then later, I found out who it was, jumps a lot's owner, and I went to go help bury the cat, and I accidentally tore the bag after about a day and a half in the sun.

And Paul says, this is not an emotional appeal for Paul. It's a logical appeal. If you deny the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, your loved ones who trusted in Christ are said they did. First of all, it's the wrong Christ, but second of all, they're just a rotting, stinking piece of meat.

The dominoes don't end for Paul. What's worse than a Christless eternity? A Christless eternity thinking you're going to be with Christ, though. Even today, I'll meet people and they think they're going to heaven, but I know by their profession and their life, they're not going.

It'd be one thing if you said, I'm going to live like hell now, and I'm Anton LaVey, and I'm a Satanist, and I'm going to go there and party with my friends. They'll still be in for a rude awakening. There'll be no masochist in hell.

But still, when you think you're going to die and go be with Jesus, and then you're going to go be tortured forever, justly because of your sin against this great God. Paul said it is untenable. The last enemy for the person believing in a non-resurrected Jesus will have not lost its sting.

This is worse than paganism. At least paganism, you just live it up now, and then deal with the nothingness later. Paul's going to talk about that in a minute. One of the commentators spun this positively, and he said this, and it's just really good.

Looking back at the previous verses, we can reconstruct a positive version of Paul's soteriology out of his negative statements. Christians are not in a pitiable situation, but a desirable and enviable one.

They're not lost, but saved. They're not in their sins, but forgiven and justified. They do not merely have hope for this life, but look forward to the eternal glory that will accompany their resurrection from the dead.

You've got to believe in the resurrection from the dead. You've got to believe in the resurrection of Jesus, or else you will be like the philosopher around the New Testament who said, the hope of the resurrection is the hope of swine.

The good news contains the resurrection, and you ought to believe it, and you ought to preach it. And if you say, I don't believe in supernatural things, friends, one day you will, but I want you to believe now so that one day won't be what you deserve it to be.

Free grace found in the risen Savior. Let's pray. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty. The whole earth is full of your glory. Father, thank you that although you were holy and are holy, you're also kind and compassionate and have delivered to us by his will and your will, Christ Jesus the Lord, the eternal son who cloaked himself with flesh 2 ,000 years ago, lived a perfect life, born under the law, accomplished redemption at Calvary, confirmed by the fact that you raised him from the dead.

And one day he'll be returning, the risen Savior who now sits exalted preeminently at your right hand. We as a church, Bethlehem Bible Church, would ask, Father, your good mercies upon us that we would never deny the literal resurrection of your son.

And if so, Father, close this place. Father, for each person, I pray that you would help them realize this undergirding, this spiritual rebar must be held onto by the hands of grace and faith. The resurrection of the body is true.

And Father, then help us to live in light of what we believe. Help us to do what we know. And Father, if there's anyone here who is not a Christian, Father, I pray that you would cause them to repent, cause them to be born again, cause them to believe in a resurrection of the body.

In Christ's name we pray. Amen.

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No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Ebendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 8 .30 and 11 a .m. and Sunday evenings at 6 p .m. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston, Massachusetts. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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