======================================================================== CHRIST IS RISEN! by Keith Daniel ======================================================================== Summary: This sermon emphasizes the power of the risen Christ to set individuals free from enslavement to sin, highlighting the importance of confessing with the mouth and believing in the heart that God raised Jesus from the dead for salvation. It shares powerful testimonies of individuals who were delivered from addictions and transformed by the living Savior, urging listeners to seek God for true freedom and repentance. The message calls for a deep reflection on God's intervention in the world's current state and the urgency of accepting Christ in these uncertain times. Topics: "Freedom in Christ", "The Power of Confession and Belief" Scripture References: Romans 10:9, 2 Corinthians 4:7, Colossians 1:27, John 8:34, Romans 6:16, John 8:36 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This sermon emphasizes the power of the risen Christ to set individuals free from enslavement to sin, highlighting the importance of confessing with the mouth and believing in the heart that God raised Jesus from the dead for salvation. It shares powerful testimonies of individuals who were delivered from addictions and transformed by the living Savior, urging listeners to seek God for true freedom and repentance. The message calls for a deep reflection on God's intervention in the world's current state and the urgency of accepting Christ in these uncertain times. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Father, we just thank Thee that we can bow before Thee in worship for Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Saviour. We thank Thee for the gift of eternal life through Him. And we bless Thee from our hearts that we can share together from Thy sacred Word and that the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit Himself will move. Without Thee we can do nothing of any value of eternal value. Come therefore and visit every heart and bless this final message of this Easter weekend. In Jesus Christ's name, in Jesus Christ's wonderful name and for His glory only. Amen. In Romans 10 verse 9 We read, If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. If a staggering and wonderful verse that God holds out to us. Many years ago now when I was a younger preacher, I had the privilege of preaching on a series of meetings around the Johannesburg area which is the largest city of our country and one of the largest cities in the world. And one of the churches as I went day after day to different churches for all these special meetings on a tour that lasted quite a few weeks, one of the churches was in a town called Jermiston, all attached now to the greater part of Joburg. But in Jermiston I was asked to speak in the Salvation Army Corps. They don't call it a church, they call it a corps like an army would call. The gentleman that was was the preacher was a man called Captain Cowan. I don't know if he's still alive but perhaps he's listening right now. Now Captain Cowan asked me for a meal before I had to go down there and preach to his people that night. It was just after Easter weekend that year, the Easter weekend of course when the church worldwide very specially brings to remembrance Christ's death and his resurrection on the third day. He shared with me around the meal of an amazing incident that occurred just a few days before on the Easter weekend that year. He said that how he went down to the church early on Easter Sunday morning. Now that church is opposite the mortuary of the town where they take bodies of dead people before burial or cremation. As you walk out of that church, out of that Salvation Army Corps in Jermiston, these Salvationists would walk out and be confronted with a very large building which was the mortuary. Not a very nice thing to look at every time you walk out of church, but the man on the other side of the road, he lives on top of the mortuary. That's not a very healthy situation, but he was what we would call an undertaker and he ran the show there. A small man I believe, but he every time he walked out of that building, the mortuary, he had to be confronted with this Salvation Army Corps and more so he often would be confronted by the great godly Captain Cowan, who was a very zealous and fiery and fearless man who witnessed everybody and he would run across and witness to this man that became quite an issue. Every time he would come out and Captain Cowan saw him and he was there, he would run over and confront him. Have you given your life to Jesus yet? Are you saved yet? Well, now it's Easter Sunday morning and church worldwide generally will have the Easter Sunday service to worship God as the sun rises, that Christ rose and so they would arrive normally across the world and in our country very much so. The evangelical churches, they would gather and sing praises to God as the sun rose and the darkness went on Easter Sunday, the day of the resurrection of Christ that we remember. Oh, he went down in his eagerness and he shared this with me what he did just a few days before on Easter Sunday. He drove through the deserted streets, no cars, no traffic, nothing. It was early in the morning, still dark and he opened the doors, got everything ready, an expectation for the people to come where they'd have this Sunday Easter resurrection service for the glory of Christ. Well, the man was standing there looking at the deserted streets in the quietness, realizing he came a bit early, so he walked over the road to the mortuary and there on the side is the door that leads up to where the undertaker lives on this little flat, this apartment on top of the mortuary. Not a very nice place, but there you are, that's where he's home. And Captain Cowan, early in the morning in the quietness, began to knock on this door and it began to go louder and louder. Eventually a light comes on upstairs and this man walks down, you hear him coming down, opens the door and there's Captain Cowan. This man in his jetting gown, half awake, he's, what is it? What's wrong? And Captain Cowan looks at this very unsaved man and he says, do you remember who died on Friday? Do you remember? The man thought for a while, yes, I remember. Well, he's not dead anymore, he's alive. The man shook his head, looked at Captain Cowan, startled and said, what? What are you talking about man? Oh, he was shaken. And Captain Cowan looked at him and said, Jesus is alive, he died. The world remembered that on Friday, his death, for all men, he died in such a way to forgive you of your sins, that God would be satisfied with his punishment, the payment, the just payment of all sins of mankind upon Christ. But he rose from the dead, he rose from the dead on Easter Sunday, the first day. Oh, he's risen and all his risen glory ascended into heaven. He cries, is risen almighty God, the son. He cries out through the preaching of the sacred book, that this risen saviour Christ, as many as received him, this living saviour, to them gave he the power, the right to become the children of God, the sons of God, the children of God. Many as received him, this risen saviour cries out to the whole world in all his resurrected glory, that as many as received him, to them gave he the powers on. 1 verse 12 says, we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, not of us. That's a very vital verse in 2 Corinthians 4 verse 7. Christ in you is the hope of glory. Christ in you is vital. Now a dead saviour can't be in you. He paid for your sins on the cross, but that's not enough. He cannot set you free. And this holy sacred book demands repentance. This holy sacred book demands a turning away from the life of sin and a deliverance. You cannot set yourself free. The dead saviour cannot. He had to rise for your faith, not only in his death for the forgiveness of sins, but in the risen life. Oh, this man looked exasperated. He just shook his head and said, you can't do this to me. You gave me a terrible fright. I thought you were talking about Lama. Oh, yes, but you tell the world that someone died and rose again from the dead. Prove it, medical sciences, that no one could argue that someone had risen from the dead. You have newspaper reporters from across the world, if that can be proven. But tell them that Jesus died. That's very different. Tell them that he rose from the dead after paying the penalty for their sins, that they would not have to face eternal damnation, but eternal life as a gift by faith in his forgiveness. Oh, through his death. That's not very different. That doesn't excite people as much who are unsaved. But that is the truth. And that's the great miracle of salvation. Your faith in his death is for the forgiveness of sins, but your faith in his resurrected life, to receive him into your life by faith, to accept him as your personal savior is vital. You see, you put your faith in a living savior. It's imperative. You must also put your faith in his life and living power to set you free. You cannot set yourself free. That's something we all have to come to realize. John 8 verse 34, whosoever committeth sin, that is something the ever-present continues. It's something you can't stop. You go back to. Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin, literally is the slave of sin, is enslaved to sin. If there's something that makes you go back to your sin, you say you're not a servant of sin, well try stopping. And then let's talk about enslavement. If you say you're not enslaved, try stopping. Then we talk again. If you say you're not. Christ said, whosoever committeth, that's a continual going back to evil, to wrong, to what is wrong and defiling. Whosoever committeth sin is the servant, is enslaved to sin. Romans 6 verse 16, Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves, servants to obey his servant, ye are to whom ye obey? With sin unto death, with obedience unto life, with obedience unto righteousness, whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin, Christ said. But then verse 36, we read, but if the Son, he's speaking about himself, if the Son, capital S, the Son of God, God the Son, if the Son, of course the resurrected Son in the light of all the scriptures, the risen, resurrected, glorious, powerful God, if the Son shall set you free from enslavement to sin, you shall be free. Indeed, Christ promises. Oh Christ lied. That would be sacrilege you say, to say such a thing. Oh no, it's sacrilege. It's sacrilege to believe God can't set you free. After this promise, if the Son shall set you free, make you free or set you free, you shall be free indeed. That's gloriously set free, gloriously said. Now, repentance. Repentance is so misunderstood even by great theologians who don't compare scripture with scripture and look only in the light of all scriptures. Repentance is not you struggling to stop evil and then say now, now I can be saved, now, oh no, oh no. Biblical repentance is not just a turning to Christ. One has to look at the context and the verses related to this. Repentance is coming to Christ fearfully conscious that you are enslaved to sin, that you cannot stop, that you cannot set yourself free and seeking him with all your heart to deliver you from what you can't deliver yourself from. Oh, you can stop smoking. You perhaps even can stop drinking. You can stop screaming, but to set yourself free in a way that God can truly, truly witness through your life that you're born again and saved and give you the witness of the Spirit in your heart. Well, that's different. You see, to be saved you not just from the punishment of sin, but from enslavement to sin. It's only a living Savior that can do that for you, that can do that to you. When I was a young preacher, I'm talking about some 50 years ago now, because I'm 73 now. When I was a young preacher, I was asked to speak at a very large convention. Now, to this day, I don't know, and I think a lot of those leaders of that particular denomination who organized this convention, I don't know if most of them would realize or think why, why they asked such a young person, hardly out in God's work, to be the speaker of that convention, where there were many hundreds of people. Well, I poured my life out in that convention because I realized it was a great privilege God was giving me as a young preacher. A lot of people got saved. Meeting after meeting, they just streamed forward, young people, and they scrawled and just come on their knees, on their face, some of them, and just seeking God weeping. There was a real movement of God, which opened many doors for me as a result in this country. Nonetheless, there was a little girl. I'm talking about a very little girl who sought God to save her soul in those meetings. One of the missionary ladies came up to me with this little girl and said, this little girl has given her life to Christ also today. I just prayed with her, but she said she has to speak to you before she leaves, and she has to leave now. I looked at her, she looked like a little angel, long white hair, so long I wondered if her mother ever cut it in her life. She really looked lovely. What is it that you want to speak to me about? I said, she said, sir, you spoke of your father, enslaved to drink, and the sorrow and the shame it brought upon the home, and the repercussions on everyone's lives in that home. You spoke of how he went on his knees, and he gave his life to Christ, like I've given now. You said that he stood up from his knees, walked out of the room and smashed every bottle of alcohol in the home, weeping. You said to your mother, I will never have alcohol in this home again. How your father's life changed to such a degree that it is the greatest miracle you've ever seen, the transformation in your father's life from that moment. How he read through the Bible over and over and over again, spent hours with God and witnesses everywhere. My father is an alcoholic, sir. My father, under the influence of drink, becomes violent and abusive and hurt us and my mother. And by law, he's not allowed to come near our home, where we live, within a 50 kilometer radius. He's not allowed to come or he'll be jailed. He's going against the law now that he isn't allowed to see us. I haven't spoken to my father. We've seen him for a long time, sir. But after what you said today, I have hope for my father and I'm going to phone my father. My mother doesn't know that I have the telephone number. I'm going to phone my father and I'm going to share what you shared about your father and I'm going to share the scriptures you shared. I want to tell my father what you said, that repentance is not you setting yourself free, but repentance is coming to Christ, conscious that you cannot set yourself free, but looking to him, not just for the forgiveness of sins that you're going to go on with, but to be delivered from the sins. You're asking for forgiveness through his death, but by his life, by a risen savior, that he will set you free, that he will. You've just got to come acknowledging you can't come knowledgeable, but repentance is turning to God and wanting him to set you free and putting your faith in him to set you free and allowing him to set you free by faith. Well, she said, I want to take all the verses that you wrote, that you have marked in your Bible, that you were reading to us of enslavement to sin and the son shall set you free. If Jesus set you free, you shall be free indeed from enslavement to sin. And I'm going to read those to my father. I want you to help me now to find all those verses and put marks like I see you've got on a piece of paper and marks inside your Bible holding them to the pages. And I want to phone my father and tell him everything. And I want you to pray for me now. I want you to pray for me now that God will use me as I share the things you shared to my father. The first time I'm going to speak to him in a long, long time, sir. I want my father back. I want my father back. Please pray for me and for him. Well, I did pray and she left. I don't know how long afterwards. I don't know how long afterwards it was. I suppose a good year, two years later. But I was preaching in another town and there was a good crowd in that church. And there was one man standing there after the service. He had a black leather jacket on and those days they had brokering, you know, thick blood red hair, a big pile of it. And he was with a big Bible in his hand. He was standing with his Bible in his hand. This thing's coming on the screen, but I don't know if you know it. And I noticed that he was trying to get hold of me, but all the people all wanted to speak. So there were little groups and families all wanting to come and just greet me, I suppose, after the sermon. Nonetheless, I walked over to him and I said, I see you trying to get in between people, but nobody's allowing you. Do you want to speak to me? He said, very, very much and very earnestly. I said, well, what is it? He said, listen, I can't tell you standing here with all these people. They're all waiting to speak to you. Would you do something terrible? Would you do something outrageous for me right now? I said, what do you mean? He said, would you turn around and run from this building to escape all these people? I said, get in my car and I want to share with you something you need to know. You need very much to know. So I looked at the people and they didn't look rather like they were all waiting. And so I did something quite terrible. I said, all right. He said, well, let's run. So I ran with him out the door and ran down the steps out in the parking areas where his vehicle was. And as we ran and started getting in the car, I turned and he says, look, look what's happening. A lot of people were just running after us. So we drove off and I thought, well, I hope nobody knows about this. I would be excommunicated, I suppose. I'm nearly dead now. So it's too late for them to do it now because this happened when I was young. Nonetheless, we drove off. So I looked at him. He said, do you remember a little girl? And he mentioned the convention that I preached, a little girl with long white hair who spoke to you about her father being an alcoholic and asked you for the scriptures and asked you to pray for she's going to phone her father to try and reach him because he's not allowed to see her. He was under the influence of drink. Well, I'm that man. I looked at him very differently now. He said, sir, when I was young, we were fed alcohol by the bottle store owner when I was a young boy. In the back, we would lie there drunk. I mean, it's funny and he thought it was funny too, but I was enslaved to alcohol. I struggled and struggled, but the worst part is as I got a bit older, I got more and more enslaved and I became violent every time, aggressive, wanting to fight, wanting to scream. But when I tried to stop, I didn't know something terrible happened. I saw visions of spiders and things crawling over me. I was so enslaved to alcohol and I was in my whole system and affecting my brain. And until I took drink, I couldn't think straight. I just saw all these horrible creatures all over me in my mind. No, I didn't know what to do. I was terrified when I saw what I had done to my family physically. When I realized what I became, I tried everything to stop, but I couldn't. And eventually the Lord took them away from me and I'm unable to see them. And that broke me. That left me with a gap in my heart that just was crippling and I wanted to die. I didn't even want to live because I couldn't stop. I tried to stop. One night I even smashed open the glass of the bottle store and grabbed a bottle and lay there in the gutter, disgusted to get all these horrible creatures all out of my mind. I was totally in a mess, destroyed by alcohol, as most people are. One way or the other, most homes are through the curse of alcohol. Well, my daughter phoned me and she told me everything you said, daddy. You can't set yourself free, but Jesus Christ can. He told me about, she told me about your father. And she gave these verses of being enslaved to sin that you can't stop. And how Christ promises to set you free. It's the living savior that can set you free. Well, I was stunned. I couldn't speak to her because it was her little voice. I just started to cry and cry. Eventually I put down the phone when I realized she'd put down the phone. One day, something quite terrible happened. And I just sunk into such depression. And I got in my vehicle and I started driving. And I was under the influence of drink to a degree. But I drove on a road I wasn't allowed to be on. Toward a town I wasn't allowed to go. By law, we're my family. I drove out. But I drove knowing that there's a gorge, that many cars have gone over a high cliff. And as I drove up, I just wanted to die. I put my foot flat on the accelerator and I started driving faster. I couldn't believe the speed the car was going. And I knew nothing now could stop me. I had to go over the cliff. I just wanted to die. But then something amazing happened. The steering wheel just suddenly began to go against my, and more and more, the car even dashed a bit to the side, but kept me from going over the cliff. Eventually, the car came to a dead standstill, and I said, I want to die. How is this possible? Something kept me and kept the car from going over the cliff to my certain death. Well, I realized it was God. Because suddenly that little girl, my daughter's voice came in, echoing in my heart. Daddy, Jesus Christ can set you free. But you've got to look to him. You've got to seek him to save you, to set you free. I opened the car door and I got on my knees in the middle of the road. And I wept aloud and I screamed, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, please save me. Set me free. I just kept crying out aloud, screaming, Jesus Christ, please set me free. And suddenly something happened. It was like a wave of divine love went right over me. And a peace flooded my heart. I didn't pray the prayers perfectly, like you would say for a person to be truly saved. I just cried out to Christ to save me. I looked to him. And suddenly this peace, and I couldn't pray another word, crying to God to set me free. All I started to do was worship God and thank him from the depth of my heart with such a sense of worship and praise coming out of me. Because I knew something amazing has happened. This wasn't mind over matter. I got up and I knew Christ had saved me. I knew. I knew I'd never go back to drink. I went back to the town and I went down the streets. I knew everybody. And I told them what happened. And I told them God has saved me. He set me free. Well, it shook the community. It shook the town because everyone knew me. It shook all my old drinking buddies who I grew up with. And God had set me free. I eventually went down to the club and I shared with all of them and told them to go home to their wives and stop drinking and be where you should be. And not like I was going home from this place. My family was living in terror of me coming home. Well, I went to the pub owner. He was an old man then, but I said to him, you were the first one that held our drink to us when we were little boys. You held our drink and we lay drunk when I became enslaved. I couldn't stop. I struggled and struggled, but right from the beginning of marriage, I did terrible things when I was drinking. But you started it. You thought it was a joke, but it cursed my life. And then I read to him in the Bible, the curse. And God puts on men who give drink out to others who are enslaved eventually and destroy their lives. Oh, I read verses. God will judge you if you don't repent. I told him and stop this. Stop it. Well, I would love to go on with much more of this story, but I can tell you this. That dear man became a preacher. That dear man was so changed that many in the community were staggered and shaken and sought God through him. That dear man was used by God to bring many, many souls to God, especially alcoholics across Southern Africa. He went preaching, gave up everything and just went preaching. I do believe he's probably dead by now because he was a lot older than I was. If he's alive, he's probably in his nineties, I'd say over a hundred. His name was Cliff Johns from Dundee in the town. And this is his testimony that I have led to share today of the risen Christ's power. The risen Christ's power. I have prayed with people over and over again in situations and in a state that you would not pray with them because God put it in my heart that they had to pray then or they would probably die through their sin. And I was more staggered than anyone to watch people rise up from drugs covered in blood one day, rise up and never touch another drug. I've seen men so enslaved in high positions and great esteem fall into the depravity of enslavement to drink alone, let alone all the other enslavements of sin. And I've seen men kneeling down, weeping, crying out to God with me to set them free and standing up never ever to touch another drink again in their lives to turn to God like my darling daddy did. Cliff Johns did. Like many, many others that I have led to God that needed to be delivered when they realized and acknowledged they couldn't set themselves free. Not only with alcohol, not only in drugs, but enslavement to immorality, enslavement to being unfaithful to their own lives, enslavement to womanizing, lusting, enslavement to many other evils. I've prayed with people, enslavement to pornography on the internet. And they can't stop. But to seek God, a living savior, to set you free from the enslavement that you're experiencing is vital. And that is why the risen Christ is so vital to our faith. Because a dead savior, yes, we can understand and embrace, but his death is all God waits for. Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to the cross I cling. And that's when God can save you, not before, when you come with nothing but the death of Christ. But that's only half of the gospel. The other half we need to preach loud and clear. And why? That is, you can't set yourself free. And according to 1 John chapter 3, Romans 6, and many other places in the Bible, that's the evidence, even to your own heart, that God has saved you. You need to come with faith, believing that God raised him from the dead, God the Father, and in all his risen power, his resurrected power, in all his glory, this God who, in one word, created the worlds. Do you think he can't set you free? When he died for you and then promised that his life, by faith in him, he will set you free indeed. And that is gloriously free, by the way. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and you will, if you're truly saved, otherwise I doubt that you are saved. I have a very, very, very strong doubt there. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, unashamedly, wherever you can, and shall believe in thine heart, that in thine heart is very, very essential, not just a little fact of belief, embracing some truth, no, but in your heart, to know this is imperative for salvation, for my salvation. And shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead. That's what today is all about, isn't it? Thou shalt be saved. Saved from what? Hell? Oh yes, but also from a taste of hell on earth, to your sin, that others will have to go through, until you're free. My Christ, this has been Easter, as the world is facing a moment where I cannot believe God just looks at this, and there's nothing about God in it. I believe this world has come into a staggering moment of quietness, and deep, deep, deep thoughts about what is happening, and how God's hand is in this, and why he's allowing this. Many, many people are thinking seriously about God for the first time, because life was so drowning them in activity, there was no time to even think so with it. Well, there's time to think now, and so many are dying. Will you die without Christ? Will you look at all that's happening, and say it's irrelevant, it doesn't mean anything about God speaking to man? That would be very foolish. I think God is showing us, your blasphemy against him, all our denial and rejection of him. I believe God is speaking to this world, that he is God, and that for many, many, it's time to look up to him, to say, your soul. I do hope, with my heart, that this message will reach many, many people listening, in this time when the world is fearful of what's coming, of how it will end. I hope with all my heart, if you're not saved, you will get saved, swiftly, and then serve God as long as he lets you live, if he does, because nobody knows what else is coming, but according to prophecy, a lot is coming. So I thank the Lord for the opportunity of preaching these three messages in the last three days, which you can view, if you haven't, or you weren't able to see the first two. I trust that you pass these three messages on to others, that might need you to be the vessel God had in mind of reaching them by passing it on, even to your worst enemy, and then praying, like that little girl who prayed for her father, for his salvation. And I thank those responsible for this live viewcast, for my son Roy, over there in America at the moment, working this, and for Vian, the district superintendent here, where Roy is based, the AEB, Vian Herman, their efforts, and everyone else involved. I thank God for the amazing hundreds of my messages on the YouTube, and many other websites. And I thank God he let me live for this opportunity, another opportunity, because if you've been called by God to preach, you don't love to preach, you live to preach. You live to preach, or you've never been called by God to preach, and you live to preach truth, no matter what the consequences. And if you preach truth, there's always consequences. Multitudes will be saved, and multitudes will hate you. They'd rather people go to hell than for truth, even in this time. Lord, please use this message, and the other messages, the other servants of Vian, who have preached for this convention, Dr. Mayberg in Cape Town, our AEB Baba Principal, and Johan, the brain, leader and head of the work, the mission at this time. Thank you for their giving their best in languages not their own, they're not English, but thank you for their anointing, anointing, and for what God did through their messages also, and will continue to use to do. Have mercy on this world, have mercy on this world, this blasphemous, sacrilegious, defiant world. Have mercy that there will be an enormous repentance resulting from this. In Jesus Christ's name, we ask these things. Amen. ======================================================================== Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/sSYZ8qlQY6Q.mp4 Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/keith-daniel/christ-is-risen/ ========================================================================