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4-9-2023 Sunday Sermon Message

Meditations of the Week: Psalm 91:1-16

Text: Psalm 16:8-11

Word title: God’s eternal destruction of sin and death through death and resurrection of Christ

       In the beginning, the God who created the heavens and the earth and all things, who existed as the word, appeared in the world in the name of Jesus. Because He is sinless, He cannot die. But He was able to die on the cross because all the sins of the law were imputed unto Himself. The apostle Paul testified of this:

For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. (Romans 8:3-4 KJV)

        Jesus, who is God, could not die, but he had to experience death because of the sins of the sinners:

But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. (Hebrews 2:9 KJV)

       But when Jesus died on the cross and His body lay in the tomb, His body was incorruptible. David prophesied about this:

For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. (Psalm 16:10 KJV)

     When his soul descended to hell and threw away the sins of the world, he was able to resurrect because His body no longer had sins. Prophet Micah prophesied of this:

He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. (Micah 7:19 KJV)

       Because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the sin, death, and curses that Satan brought into the world are forever blotted out. The Lord said those who believe in Christ Jesus, who is the resurrection and life, will receive these blessings:

Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? (John 11:25-26 KJV)

       At that moment, Martha, the sister of Lazarus, said to Jesus, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world. (John 11:27 KJV) , He then turned to Lazarus, who had been dead and rotting for four days in the tomb, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. (John 11:43 KJV) the dead Lazarus came out with his hands and feet covered with shrouds.

        Jesus foretold that when he comes to give life to those who believe in him, he will raise both the dead and the living in Christ. Apostle Paul in the Holy Spirit testified of this:

¶ But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 KJV)

        Apostle Matthew, who witnessed the resurrection of the Old Testament saints who slept in Abraham’s bosom upon the death and resurrection of Jesus testified as follows:

 Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God. (Matthew 27:50-54 KJV)

       Apostle Paul testified to the Hebrews about the eternal blessings that Christ gives through His bloody death and resurrection once and for all:

But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? ¶ And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. (Hebrews 9:11-15 KJV)

        Upon the death and resurrection of Jesus 2,000 years ago, the Israelites who were in the bosom of Abraham, who died after only purifying their bodies through the blood of animals under the law were able to rise up. Their graves could no longer contain them,  they were raised up from the graves taken up to heaven wearing immortal and incorruptible bodies. Likewise, even if Christians who believe in the blood of Christ and are born again of the Spirit die in the New Testament era, their graves will not overcome them, and when Christ appears, they will be resurrected with an incorruptible body and will be raptured to heaven.

        Apostle Paul testified to the Corinthian church saints about this hope:

¶ Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 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 changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. ¶ Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. (1 Corinthians 15:51-58 KJV)

Amen! Hallelujah!