In this sermon, the speaker discusses the reign of Jesus Christ and the blessings that come with it. He emphasizes that Jesus will reign from shore to shore and that in his kingdom, prisoners will be set free and the weary will find eternal rest. The speaker also mentions the joy of eternity and suggests that sinners may benefit from witnessing the judgment of others. He concludes by urging viewers to subscribe to Last Days Ministries for further teachings and resources.

This teaching is presented by Last Days Ministries. If you would like to receive a free subscription to the Last Days magazine, which is colorfully illustrated and filled with challenging articles to help you in your relationship with the Lord, please write and let us know. You may also request a sample pack of our most ordered tracks, or a list of our currently available teaching tapes on audio and video cassette. Either use the coupon on the inside of your cassette case, or write to us. Last Days Ministries, Box 40, Lindale, Texas, 75771. Please indicate what you would like us to send you. The resurrection of Jesus. Now some people dispute that and say the most awesome thing that ever happened was the birth of Jesus. It was country to all nature. It was born of a virgin. And therefore the supreme event in history, Jesus divided history. History is A.D., Anno Domini, the year of our Lord, or B.C., before Christ. But I still hold my ground and say that the resurrection is the most amazing thing. Old Dr. Shepherd is a great Baptist preacher. There used to be some great Baptist preachers. He was a great Baptist preacher and he said this, Without the incarnation, that is a theological term for the birth of Christ, without the incarnation the resurrection is impossible. And without the resurrection the incarnation is incomplete. There are two sides of one coin. As Brother Chip reminded us in his prayer, Jesus died for our sins, but he rose again. The Apostle Paul gave us, I think, the most profound things ever written. And you remember he gives us 58 verses in 1 Corinthians 13. It's not as popular as 1 Corinthians, pardon me, 1 Corinthians 15. It's not as popular as 1 Corinthians 30, or 1 Corinthians 12 and 40. But it's a magnificent display, a magnificent reminder of the death and the miracle and the Lord Jesus Christ's resurrection. Now Paul, if you give him Hebrews, and I think he wrote Hebrews, he builds a pyramid of 14 epistles. And then when he's built that pyramid, if the pyramid is like this on a fine point, he turns the pyramid over and balances it all on one thing. All those 14 epistles sway, they stand or they crumble under the impact of one thing, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. He's very plain about it, he says if there's no resurrection you're yet in your sins. We have a letter from Bethany tonight. And their present president or principal of the school wrote a book years ago, Saved by His Life. And if Jesus Christ is not living tonight, we're sunk. You know on this one thing, the resurrection of Jesus, billions and billions of people's eternity rests on that one site. Now it's almost incredible to think that every rotten and lousy place, every war that's ever been instigated, every massacre, every unclean thing, every woman selling a body on the street, all the rottenness and corruption through drugs and so forth, all became because of one man. By one man's sin or disobedience, sin entered into the world. There's only one thing more amazing than that, is that by one man's righteousness and one man's offering, that sin, for those who believe, can be cancelled. We used to sing in Sunday school, there was no other good enough to pay the price for sin. He only could unlock the gates of heaven and let us in. I often wonder, and you've got to admit, you've been in church services that were as bad as a funeral service. And I ask you in God's name, with all the pride I've been, how can the service be bad if we have a living Christ? By the same token, tell your preacher, I say, what I'd preach, I would never produce dry sermons. That's a fiction, it may not be a biological possibility, but surely it is a spiritual thing. As I said very clearly, to those of us who preach the word, to this man will he look, the man that trembles at his word. And the reason that sinners don't tremble at the altar is because preachers don't tremble to deliver that word. Let's look at this marvellous 20th chapter in the Gospel recorded by John. I think we need to remember this again, that the Gospel of John is the last thing written in the New Testament. You get John, and then one, two, three epistles, and then the book of the Revelation. And you know, by the way the Bible's set up, we read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and then Acts and Romans follow on, as the children say. And the kind of thing that has a design order, that they, you know, there's not too much about Matthew, Mark and Luke, or even John, but oh, when we get to the epistles, boy, you know the epistles are only an extension of the four Gospels, that's all. They're just an elaboration. They're shown to us in more detail. Now, I don't know, I don't like to use the word exciting, you can get excited at the football match. But I don't know more inspiring, and that's what I think every service ought to be. I don't care if you're the rate of the world, and you're all the in-laws, and your mother-in-law, and everybody else has pestered you all the week. I think that when you really come into the sanctuary, and really touch the hand of his government, and really receive an infusion of divine life, we ought to leave every meeting electrified. There's a lot of criticism today about the electronic church. Well, the New Testament church wasn't electronic, but it surely was electrified. I'd like to have gone to a service, wouldn't you? Couldn't be many who died and went to a service, and the preacher killing a couple of deacons to start the meeting. Wouldn't that be wonderful? Well, that's what people did. Anyway, he killed one, and he killed one, and he shot him and his wife. I think the most wonderful thing about the New Testament church was it was totally unpredictable. You never knew what was going to happen. You know now, don't you? That's what the Holy Ghost has to do Wednesday morning in the church office. And they're coming in the church, we're going to sing this hymn, we're going to do that, and we're going to finish at twelve o'clock, because lunch is waiting, and God can go, get out of here Lord, but be back by seven tonight. And still they turn up Wednesday. You say, that's almost blasphemy to say it. It's more blasphemous to do it. The New Testament church went everywhere. What did they go preaching? They went preaching the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Again, the most astounding miracle. Remember in the second chapter of Acts, where Peter gets up, you know he's always bawling over his volatile and bulky, and as we'd say, shoots his mouth off. If you read carefully, you'll discover that Jesus spoke to Peter, not only more than he spoke to any other individual apostle, but more than all the other apostles put together. And conversely, Peter spoke to Jesus more than all the other apostles put together. He's always on the ball, he's always something to say. One day he ran away from a woman's finger. Boy, boy, he's not the first man to do that. After all, he lied just to get to 800 prophets, but he ran away from one woman's smart guy. Maybe she put her finger up, and off he went. This woman said, you're with him, you speak his language. No one ever heard about him. Don't know him. Oh, it must have been an awful experience for Peter when Jesus finally did turn up. But on the day of Pentecost, Peter points the finger and he says, you crucified the Lord in glory by wicked hands, but him hath God raised up. No one will emphasize that. Him hath God raised up doesn't mean God the Father. We've seen it before in meetings, although it wouldn't be a Friday night meeting if we didn't say, holy, holy, holy. God in three persons, blessed Trinity. Him hath God raised up. You remember that rumor, the man saying to Jesus, you better watch your step, or I'll put you to death, and Jesus says, not possible. No man's going to take my life from me, I will lay it down, and I will take it up again. So it's the work of God the Father, it's the work of God the Son, and Romans 8 says what? The spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead. Have you ever realized the Holy Ghost can't do anything that's small? He breathed on the world when it was chaos and he brought cosmos out of it. He just brooded over it, that's what the Word of God says. And then one day that same mighty Holy Spirit brooded over the bare, empty matrix of the Virgin Mary, and he conceived Jesus Christ in it. And that same Holy Spirit came up a bunch of men, they were all failures, they'd all deserted, they'd dropped their vows, and they were all waiting on the upper room, and the Holy Spirit came upon them. And a bunch of unlearned, unlearned, so-called ignorant men, they had no financial backing, they had no great system like we have, they had no electronic media, but they turned the world upside down. And I love that phrase of the Apostle Paul where he says, having nothing, and yet possessing all things. My God, now we possess everything and do nothing. And we've got millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars to preach TV and radio messages around the world. We've been doing it for thirty years. Is the world any better? No, but I know you'll never make up for the living agency. After all, if God wanted he could have made donkeys talk. Don't say he does that tonight then I'll be after you. But anyhow, if he made Balaam's ass talk, he could make the trees to talk. He could have sent angels in thousands, as he said, that you dive over the cortex of heaven and go to earth. They'd have been at work in five minutes evangelizing the world, but he didn't let angels do it. And the Himalayans write when he says angels never felt the joy that our salvation brings. Why did they do it? Well, Paul believed that God so loved the world. And not only that, he wrote in Ephesians that Christ loved the church, but he says he did something infinitely more than love the world. And he did something infinitely more than love the church. He loved me and gave himself for me. And he wasn't a drunkard. He wasn't a man with a prison record a mile long. He wasn't a man whose brain was half-shattered with drugs. He was a scholar, an English gentleman, one of the finest men that maybe ever taught the English so. And he had been trained in the ministry. His grandfather wrote hymns, his father wrote hymns, his mother was an amazing woman. And Charles Wesley in that lovely hymn, Can it be, says, Long my imprisoned spirit lay fast bound in sin and nature's night. Thine eye diffused the quickening ray, I woke the dungeon flame with light, my chain fell off. What do you mean your chain fell off? You've no change of smoking, you've no change of drunkenness, you've no change of thievery, you've no change of unfettered, my change of tradition. I was fast bound in sin and nature's night. And he strode forth with his brother and they helped emancipate the whole world. I don't know how many people sing, how many people will preach Wesley's sermons. Thousands of preachers preach sermons every week. But all around the world everybody sings Charles Wesley's wonderful hymns. Love divine, all love excelling, Jesus, lover of my soul, he wrote a mere three thousand. And it's a shame if you don't know a lot of them, you're very ignorant, you'd better get a hymn book and memorize them. Because some of you young people may have the joy of finishing up in prison. Did I hear an amen? Oh, sorry. Why not? That's what the early church did. They hardly got going, they put them in prison. The early church was married to poverty, prisons, and persecution. Now we're trying to marry the church to prosperity, personalities, and what? I need another P there. Pardon? Popularity. My wife got it, she heard it so often. We're going to read this chapter, let's look at it. John 20. This raises a lot of questions with the answers in there for that too. It's a lovely summary. The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene, early when it was yet dark, to the sepulchre. And she is with stone taken away from the sepulchre. Now, who moved the stone? There's a book on that I wish to advise every one of you. It's called, Who Moved the Stone? It's written by a man by the name of Morrison. He set off to prove the fallacy of the resurrection. And halfway through it the stone fell on him and he got saved. You know what the scripture says? If you fall on the stone it will break into pieces but if it falls on you it will grind you to powder. Well that's what happened. Who moved the stone? Did Jesus just speak and it rolled away? Did the angels who were singing on it move it? It doesn't matter. But get this quite clear, the stone was not moved to let Jesus out of the sepulchre. What in the world was it open for? It was all the way to let the disciples in. He didn't leave the stone all the way because later he goes into this room as it says in this chapter and the door was shut and the invocation of the Greek was there the doors were barred. They were fearing. They were terrified. But the stone was all the way. Then she went off and she came to Simon Peter. OK, let's look a bit further. Verse 6. Then cometh Simon Peter following him and went into the sepulchre and he saw the linen clothes lie and the napkin that was about his head. What does that do for you? Anything? Well I'll tell you what it does for me. It tears the shroud of Turin to shreds. Why? Because the shroud of Turin you have Jesus like this and you have a crown on his head. But it says distinctly elsewhere that Jesus took the wrapping on his head and he laid it on one side and he folded it up. I remember Chadwick Dr. Chadwick saying Jesus was always very tidy. When I lived in England we never saw paper we used to call them serviettes. We used to call them napkins. In England napkins are things you put on babies. But then you have at our house we never saw paper napkins. Most civilized countries don't have them. But you know what? Everybody at the table folded their napkin in a different way. My father folded his one way. I had a ring with my L on for Leonard and I rolled mine out one way. My sister folded hers one way. My father used to make a bishop's mitre out of his and then you put a donut in there not a donut one of those hard nuts in there. What did you tell me? No, no, no, no. A what? Bagels. I rolled a roll that's right. Not a bagel. We're not Jewish. They're like bagels. You see our scripture shatters all the silly idea of the Shroud of Turin. It was found in a Catholic 13th century monastery. There's not a bit of truth in it. Because it has Jesus with a crown of thorns on his head who could not be laid to rest like that. His arms couldn't be out like this. And he definitely took that he would hurt his fingers. He would put the crown on one side or something. No sirree he took that napkin that was on his head and he folded it the way he always folded his napkin when he was at table. And they identified him by that I'm sure of that. The napkin that was about his head lying not with the linen cloth but wrapped together in a place by itself. You know and I think I think he just came out of that sheath that they wrapped him in he just came out and then he took this as he was walking out of the sepulchre and he laid it in a separate place by itself in the pool that he was risen. There was no calm there at all. The napkin was about his head. Okay verse 8. Then went in also another disciple which came first to the sepulchre and he saw and believed. For as yet they knew not the scripture that he must rise again from the dead. They knew it but they didn't know it with understanding. The disciples went around to their own home but Mary stood it out of the sepulchre weeping. Let's go down the chapter. Verse 17 Jesus said unto her touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my father but go to my brethren. Do you know that's the first time he ever used that word? They must have suddenly been startled. Did you hear what he said? He called us his brethren. And then he put them inside the ring and he said I ascend to my father and your father my God and your God. Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord and he had spoken these things. The same day of the evening being the first day of the week when the doors were shut. Again the Greek implies when the doors were barred. The disciples would assemble for fear of the Jews. And the implication is that all the disciples were there except two. One was Thomas who was away doing something and the other was Judas who of course had sold out to Jesus. Excuse me. They would assemble for fear of the Jews. Then came Jesus and stood in the midst and said what do you think he should have said? Hmm? Don't you think he should have come and stood and put his hands up and said shame on the whole lot of you. You traitors. You cowards. Shame on you. But he doesn't come to condemn. Look, let me put this back in a minute. Jesus stood in the midst. Can you remember the hymn you sang tonight? Hail thou once despised Jesus. Hail thou Galilean King. He is King of Kings. He is Lord of Lords. And he stands there in the midst of a bunch of frightened terrified men who have gone through some traumatic experiences and they didn't know where their world was. And all I could do was stand back as I read that text over and over. And I said it nearly every hour of the night during the past week. And I said to myself, there he is, meek in all his majesty. The first thing he said was, I am meek and lowly at heart. And here he is, not with a halo around his head, not with angels singing. He stands in the midst of those disciples. He stood in their midst. The older I get, the more I realize how dumb the disciples were. And I say that with respect. The only thing that startles me more is how dumb you and I are. Because they hadn't seen it. You and I have read the last chapter of the story. God help us. They didn't know what was going to happen now. But I could say to everybody, everybody points the finger at them. They're the most ridicule men. Two of them had already been pressing their noses to the gate. They were despised and distressed and disappointed and disgusted and dissatisfied. And they were rushing as fast as they could to Emmaus. And that is every reason to believe all the other disciples were like that too. Oh, what they used to say about Princess Grace. I don't know why, but anyhow. They used to say, Princess Grace, Her Serene Highness. I used to think the name was out of place. But I tell you what, I can look at Jesus and say, His Serene Majesty. Lord, the tokens of his passion growing glorious till he bore. He had been through something that had no precedent. It was unprecedented and it was unrepeated to the end of the ages. He alone did it. There used to be a great preacher in England by the name of Dr. Jarrett. Read some of his books, they're very good. And he said whenever he could get a weekend off, he would go to London and Spurgeon was preaching at that time, and Dr. F.D. Meyer was preaching at that time. But I think the king of the pulpit regards the type of preacher that Chip mentioned on Sunday who got all his homiletics straight and he had a colossal vocabulary and so forth. I think that the king of the whole bunch come in if you want to come in. Some chairs here if you want to come down. But Jarrett said whenever I needed a spiritual refresher I would slip down to London and if I could get in I would hear Dr. Joseph Parker and he said of all things I got there one Easter day. And he said Joseph Parker buried Jesus like only Parker could bury him. He got Jesus in the tomb, they put the stone over the tomb, they put wax over the stone, they put soldiers over the wax and over the seals and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on could hold his tongue. What does it say? It says in John's version, he showed them his hands and his side. If you read the 24th chapter of Luke, it says he showed them his hands and his feet. What's the difference? It says he came when the doors were shut to the disciples. You know, not once in all his writings and all these, what, 22 chapters in John, 21 chapters in John, he never refers to the apostles as apostles, he always calls them disciples. And then in Luke 24, he says he showed them his hands and his feet. Because you see, Luke is showing us the Son of Man, and he suggests, go, go, go get hold of him. But John is showing us the Son of God. He says that he showed his side where they kept fruit near to his heart, and water came out as a sign of the eternal love of God. Is it easy to sing, or the whole realm of nature mind? Is it easy to sing, when I surveyed a wonderous cross, and originally it was written this way, where the young prince of glory died. I did wonder what the angels looked down from heaven and saw him when men pulled his beard and spat a big clot of rotten, dirty phlegm in his face. And when they tried to push him over the precipice, he never retaliates. He showed them his hands and his side. I can imagine Peter on the inside is bawling, and he says, ridiculous, preposterous. Man, you've got a chance to take all the shame out of it. You can vindicate this right now, within half an hour, if you walk down the main street in Jerusalem and do some miracles. Turn the water into wine again. Turn the sea of Galilee into blood. Turn the moon into blood. Call those legions of angels you wouldn't call. Let them come and sing a hallelujah chorus round here. Everything depends on whether you are, but remember he said, because I live you shall live also. Now the resurrection is not a part of my theology. The resurrection is a personality. Jesus says, I am the resurrection. And whatever the old pope will say, he's going to broadcast on Sunday. A silly old guy, I don't know why. Don't you believe for a minute he has the keys of the kingdom, as they say? Why did Jesus say, I have the keys of what? Hell and death? The pope doesn't have them. The Lord will never trust them to a bachelor anyhow. Jesus has the key of death. Why? They said, did you see him yesterday? What did he do? Oh, he opened his blind eye. I've seen him do that a dozen times. He's such a lunatic man. I've seen him do that many times. He opened somebody's deaf ears. He stubbed somebody's stammering tongue. You didn't hear the news? Oh, where were you yesterday? The hall of Jerusalem in every cafe. The poor salon where they sell, you know, the furries on them. They're selling precious jewels from all over the world. And it was gossip. Everyone was saying, do you know that wonderful man called Lazarus? Jesus went to his tomb yesterday. He did? What did he do? Well, I'll tell you what he did. He said, you roll away the stone. You know what we want? We want Jesus to do everything without us shifting the stone. That's our problem. Remember when he turned the watch into wine? Why didn't he say, bring the water pots? Watch this. They're rock full of wine. No. He said, you bring the water pots and you fill them with water and I will turn them into wine. There's a human side, a human responsibility. And he says, roll away the stone. Can you imagine the wall peeping over the wall? The high priest and all the others that went after him, the Roman soldiers, and there they are looking over the wall. What are we going to do now? What are we going to do now? And he says, roll away the stone and they rolled the stone away. And then he said with a loud voice, only twice I think he thought with a loud voice, here and on the cross. No, and also when he said, I am the watch of life. You know what he said? He said, Lazarus, come forth. Why did he say, Lazarus, come forth? Because if he said, come forth, all the temples would have come and it wasn't time for them to come yet. It must have been that way because I am the resurrection. He demonstrated he was the resurrection. Oh mercy, how could these disciples fail to understand that he was going to rise from the dead when he grazed Jairus, his daughter, and he grazed Lazarus, and he said, look if you steal my body and if you kill me I will still rise from the dead. And they forgot it. But they are telling God's name. You and I have forgotten a lot more than that. You read the last chapter in this story. You know he is the resurrection. You know he is the life. You know he is coming in clouds of glory with ten thousand of his saints and a multitude of angels. You know he is going to settle all the world. But does it excite you? Does it stir you? No. Jesus doesn't do any spectacular thing. He just stands and mimics. Lord, couldn't you just go down, just give us a sample, just go down the street and lean over the wall and some of the old saints are buried there and say, rise, and we would like to see everybody run out of the cemetery. Why should we do it? We have already done it once. Why put time through it again? What does he have to prove? Why didn't he bring Elijah back from the dead? Why not bring Isaiah and Jeremiah? Let's see some of these great marvelous Old Testament heroes and kings. He showed them his hands. Can you think of anything more prophetic than that? Anything more unsensational? We love the sensational. We love the miraculous. We love the showmanship. As I said before, I wish, and I do, I really wish we had gone right from that room where they were and gone into the bedroom of Pontius Pilate and just tapped him on the cheek and woke him up and said, well, now what do we do? That would have been something. Then go down a bit further down the street to Caiaphas and pull his beard. He used to have a beard. He could pull his beard, you know, like a nobody. Get rid of that belt. And the high priest woke up and looked with terror. He says, well, I told you I could live. No man takes my life from me. Surely again it's the best of the best in fact in history, Thalambro Stennings said. Again Paul builds fourteen epistles and balances it all on this one thing, that if Jesus Christ is not risen, you're yet in your sins. Yes, you and I know the end of the story. We know that he died. We know that he rose again, but he has something else to do. He's yet to ascend to his father. And he says to Mary here, don't, it says that when he said, he showed them his hands and his feet, the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Again he didn't rush into the building and scold them. He didn't say, you had three of the most amazing years you'll ever live. And you've seen every miracle and you've seen me raised to death and you're a bunch of no goods. Huh? I wonder how many times the Lord could have pulled you up dead in your tracks or me in my tracks and say, look, you've seen this over the years and you've seen God manifest himself. And yet some days there's hardly a hallelujah comes out of your heart, there's hardly a song of praise and adoration. It's so-called safe. You accept it. Don't grumble about the Catholics, there's no joy. Where is your joy in the Lord? Where is your authority? What did they do? He says, they were glad. Oh, mercy, mercy. Weren't you glad the day you saw the Lord? Chip mentioned that last Sunday. I was thinking of the hymn, oh happy day that fixed my choice on thee, my savior and my God. Well may this glowing heart rejoice until its rapture is all abroad. And the last sentence he says, now let my long, now rest my long divided heart, fixed on this blissful thing to rest. Morever shall my Lord depart with him of every good possess. High heaven that heard that solemn vow, that vow renewed, shall daily hear, till in life's latest hour I bow in blessing death had done so dear. Again Paul says he not only loved the world, he loved the church. He not only loved the church, he loved me. And when he gives his list there, he says he was seen of Cephas, he was seen of James, he was seen of the church, he was seen of 500. Did he know the most amazing thing? Last of all, he was seen of me also. I think one of the most awesome texts in the whole of the Word of God, and there are many that shatter me, is the fact that God said one day, he said to Ananias, go to the street called Straight, ask in the house of a man called Judas, and there is a man called Saul of Tartus. He was a bloody man. He had murdered, he had split up homes, he had driven people from their white countries. He had done every vile thing that was possible. And God in heaven forgets the universe. He doesn't send Gabriel or somebody else. He says there is a man on the Damascus road, he was going to liquidate the church that I loved so much, he was going to kill my bride. Isn't it amazing that God stopped all the business of the universe to look at one man? When you look at secular history, the world is being ravaged and brutally assaulted and raped, because one man like Hitler, or one man like Napoleon, or one man like Alexander the Great. Science is being brought into new orders because of one man. Do you think sometimes we get it a bit too easily? I guess everybody knows something about Henry VIII and all his wicked wives and lads, but Henry IV was quite a character too. And he did something that was wrong, and his priest told him that he had to go into the courtyard of a lady called Countess Matilda. She lived in a great castle, it was winter. And he said you could go in that courtyard and stand there for three days in bare feet in the snow, you can have a wool wrap around you, and do three days of penance, penitence. Just stand deep in the snow in your bare feet. And he stood there for three days, trying to please the guy that put the penalty on him. And at the end of the days, his feet frostbitten, they carried him into the place, and the priest pronounced his, you know, absolver deus, you're free. You know, I don't think you'll ever forget, if anybody ever mentioned the castle of Countess Matilda, I guess you'd think, yeah, I remember when Henry falls to death there. Three days doing penance, boy, I won't do that thing again. You know, these days particularly, there's so much cheap grace about, my God, it didn't take much to get to the cross. You don't have to be 60 years of age, I had kids at Teen Challenge 20 years ago that came out of the gutter, and they'd almost be boasting around the dinner table, well, when did you first murder somebody? One boy said, I carried a 38 when I was eight years of age, I shot a man. I murdered a man before I was 10. I was in a double murder when I was 12. And they were counting the list of crimes they'd had. One boy at 15 had lived, slept, with three different women, one in the Bronx, and one in Queens, and one somewhere else, at 16 years of age. Please turn your tape over for the remainder of this message. What? Wicked! Corrupted! And yet such is the miracle of God's mercy, that a man can kneel down with a broken heart, and a broken life, and a broken will, with no more ambition than an animal. But they had something that's missing these days, they got real definite Holy Ghost conviction. You see, the devil has two major tricks with people. One is, you're so good you don't need to be saved, and the other is, so bad you can't be saved, and he's a liar on both counts. Again, I say, let's finish this, every demon in hell is looking on, Jesus is there in the tomb, will he get out? The stone, the wax, the seal, the soldiers, the sin of the world, every demon there, and suddenly, you know, I kind of think that that physical thing had something to do, do you remember when I said there was a great earthquake? I guess there was. Who was that, who was that heathen? There were two men, Diogenes, there was a Greek Diogenes, there was a Diogenes who was a, I was going to say Italian, no he wasn't Italian, he was an Egyptian. And the very day that Jesus died, well then what happened? It became as black as night at midday. I say God pulled a blind down over the sun. I've been around the world a couple of times, I like to go to art galleries, certain types, and I've looked at pictures of the crucifixion, and you know, nobody got it straight. Number one, I don't believe Jesus had a loincloth on, I believe he was stark naked as part of his humiliation. And how can a man depict what even God never saw? It was too terrible for God to see his own son, and he turned his head away. And in that moment, Jesus says, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And for those seconds he was forsaken of God, so that you and I wouldn't be forsaken of God forever and ever and ever and all without end and eternity. Do you know that hymn, Man of Sorrows, what a name, how many of you know that? Wonderful hymn, I don't know if it's in our book. Bearing shame and scoffing rude, in my place condemned he stood. Have you ever visualized as a crowd went down the street jeering and mocking and so forth, and they saw there, the three crosses, there's the center one, there's the second one, and there's somebody in each cross and there on the middle one was somebody who shouldn't be there. Have you ever imagined that others going up and saying, you know, my God, I should be hanging on that cross? Or have you made it personal and said, I should be hanging on that cross? He bore my sins in his body on the tree. Bearing shame and scoffing rude, in my place condemned he stood. And see, in my pardon, salvation is so personal. Do you remember what Charles Wesley wrote, Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly. The hardest thing in the world is to try and get a group of people to worship. Do you know why? Because a lot of them have been out of kilter since last Sunday, and you're trying to get them into line with God. You're trying to get them to utter some words that don't mean a thing. But oh, when there's that love relationship. And you see in there, you see that love so amazing, so divine, and I hope you've read it this week. Yes, I'm afraid as I see it, the church now is where the disciples were. She's forgotten her Lord. She's forgotten his transformation. She's forgotten his miraculous power. They're content to sing a few words. We accept hand-me-down theology from the preachers. And we think it's so good because we're keeping up tradition. Tradition won't save our generation. It doesn't want tradition, it wants life. And Jesus came, not that we may have more life, only that we might have life. And the insulting thing about the Bible is that it is a colossal intellect. And you want to regret this modern scientist. The Bible doesn't argue that you're dead. And the wonder of the resurrection is this, we don't have to wait to die physically to get into the resurrection. And yet Paul is still saying, what a character he was. I'm hoping to get the first 5,000 years with him in heaven. So if you see me talking, will you keep your nose out of it till I get a few of my questions answered? Oh, what an amazing man he was. Huh? He out-lived us, he out-preached us, he out-sacrificed us. Why? Well, he says he's a home eternal in the heavens. He goes down the chapter in what, 1 Corinthians 5 there? And then he says, do you know what it is? Do you know how I go on when others stop? Do you know how I fast when other people feast? There's a consuming love inside of me. He says, the secret is this. It's not my colossal intellect. The secret is this, that the love of God is shed abroad in my heart by the Holy Ghost. And he says, this is the secret in that 14th verse, the love of Christ and stay with me. I used to pass the church in my early 20s, not in the early 20s, in my early 20s. And we had a very beautiful lady. She was about 6 feet, she was as ugly as a duck, and she had a big nose, and her skin was all craggy. And she was a granddaughter of the founder of the Salvation Army, William Booth. Her name was Marichal, which is French for marshal. She went to France and had revival, like dear William Wilford at the back there. That's a young man I told you about a few months ago, who dared to believe God, and went and rented a bull ring in Valencia, and got 25,000 people a night and 50,000 people Sunday night, with no money. Took offerings and paid everybody what he owed, and he didn't make a dime out of it. You never knew an evangelist do that in this country. But anyhow, let's get over that quickly. But anyhow, we were singing in this big auditorium, and I stepped back and I looked at this craggy face, and the tears began to bounce off one wrinkle to another and splash down. And we were singing a hymn that woman wrote. She went to Paris. Her father kicked everybody to the ends of the earth, oh William Booth, get out, get people saved. And he said the same to his family until his daughter came, and he said, well darling, you can't go because you've inherited your mother's curvature of the spine, and it's a very difficult country. But she spoke French better than the French. She took a bunch of English society ladies who never even put up their own hair. They had maids and servants, they lived in castles, and some didn't. And they went to France, and they got a dirty, filthy basement in an old factory. Those girls that never washed a dish, got down, rolled their skirts up and scrubbed the filth, scraped the filth off the floor and washed it and put chairs in there. The fetters came from the Sorbonne, that great school that they had there. Queen of the prostitutes came and brought a whole gang of people. Joybirds came. One night as they sang a hymn, some guys pulled the chairs away and they began to dance, and these women lifted up their skirts and the marichal stopped it and said, do you want to dance? Yes, sure. All right, she says, pull all the chairs back. Dance. I'll play my instrument. We'll play instruments for you to dance. So long as you listen to me preach for twenty minutes after you've danced for twenty minutes. She's like me, she forgot all sense of time, and she preached for an hour and twenty minutes. And they came and knelt at the altar, weeping. Criminals, society ladies, professors from the university. She had the revival. I stepped back in that conference, I was a pastor of that church and the place was packed. And they began to sing the last stanza of the hymn she wrote. And they sang this, there is a love constraining me to go and seek the lost. I yield, O Lord, my all to Thee, to save at any cost. There is a fire that falls on me, is in the upper room, destroying all canality, dispelling fear and gloom. There is a life who has given me a life divine and strong, it carries me to every sea of sorrow, storm and wrong. There is a love constraining me to go and seek the lost. I yield, O Lord, my all to Thee, to save at any cost. And I saw people on the front row looking up at her and said, there's that big old lady, the tears were running down. There she is, standing at the side of our pastor. Forget it, she wasn't with me at all. She was backing one of those revivals. I'm sure she was seeing what happened, why she blocked the streets like we used to do in England. And the cops came and arrested her. And she didn't take the warning, she went another day and blocked the street. And they took her to court. And the judge said, all right, you start a prison sentence next Monday morning at nine o'clock. And you'll go to prison for, I don't know, ten days or something. She said, no, your excellency, what do you mean no? I can't go to prison. You can go to prison, you broke the law. You may be an English lady, you broke the law, you go to prison. No, sir, I can't go to prison next. Why can't you go to prison next Monday morning? She said, because I'm starting a prison sentence in France next Monday morning, that's why. Oh, dear Lord. That passion, that vision seems to have gone somehow. You know why? Because the cross has got bend for one thing. Because the resurrection has got bend for one thing. Because we give Satan more credit than he should have. He gave us power over all the power of the enemy. Does that happen in your church? Come on now, come on, that's theological. When does it happen? A dear woman called me two hours before the meeting tonight. She broke into tears, Mr. Rangel, I want to come and see you. I'm going to Christ for the nations for a week, and please give me some time. And she choked up, and I said, I'll give you some time. Twenty-four of us went about sixty miles into the hills in Denver, in the Rockies. Three years ago, twenty-four of us to wait on God for revival. We're down to ten now, but they were teenagers when they went, and they're now all up in their twenty-fours and twenty-fives and twenty-sixes. And we're still there, ten of us. We're in an old Methodist church with a pot-bellied stove. And she stammered through weeping and tears all the time. And she said, please, we need some help. We need you to talk to us. We need somebody whose heart beats for revival. Something has to happen, something has to happen. The night before, a young man called me from Norfolk, Virginia. Are you Mr. Rangel? I said, do you believe I am? You wrote a book called America's Too Young to Die. I said, yes. He said, well, I'm in the American Navy. And he broke down, and he couldn't talk for a while. He sobbed and sobbed. Are you still there? Yes. Brother, I'll be here as long as you want me. He said, this message ought to be in every house in America, America's Too Young to Die. But he said, the important thing is God's brought in my heart reading it, and he's called me into the ministry. I'm going to give up all my careers and follow the Lord. Man called me the day before that and said, we want you to come up to a certain part of the United States and give a half-hour interview on revival, on America's Too Young to Die. It's our only hope. I'm not saying that because I'm involved in it. I'm saying this. But you see, when you get discouraged and say, well, we're a funny little remnant here. There's just a few odd folk. There's hundreds of people round about. We could fill the largest auditorium if they had any compassion. You need to borrow the First Baptist Church in town or the Green Acres or somewhere and pack the place to the roof. We live with all of them of the millennium. What did the disciples do? Jesus said, peace I give unto you as a father has sent me, so send I you. And he breathed on them and said, receive ye the Holy Ghost, and that was before Pentecost. They received the Holy Ghost before they were ever in the upper room. I believe that's what John Wesley meant when he preached throughout from Roman's age, when he talked about the witness of the spirit, having the witness in ourselves. You can't conjure it up. Because the model, if you're riding on a high crest on a highway of emotion, it's a model of a bottom drop shack, and you think all hell is pursuing you, and you think God's out of business. But oh, if the spirit bears witness on the inside, listen, neither hell or high waters will, it says, will disturb you. You see, make up your mind. Was it stuffy there? Did Jesus really put away our sin? Did he rise from the dead? Has he risen? Are we justified? You see, everything hangs on this. My resurrection hangs on his resurrection. So does yours. Oh, I love that thing. I know I'm taking the prayer time, but I didn't intend it to do this tonight, to try and rivet this deep in your mind that Jesus has made a perfect atonement, that Jesus has risen, and he has all power, all holy redeemer, hallelujah, we sing tonight. Jesus says, do you marvel that I unstop their tears, and open blind eyes, and raise to death? Then it says in what, John 5? The day is coming in the hutch, all who are in the graves. Before I got discouraged at one time, I read Romans 8, 28, till I could recite it back to front and middle to each way. But I found something more glorious from there. I found that he's Lord of life, and he's Lord of death, and he has the keys, and he has all power, and under every knee he's going to bow, and at the voice of the Son of God, that voice like the sound of many waters. And what does he turn and say to Lazarus? Lazarus, come forth. He's going to say to all who are in the graves, arise, and at the voice of the Son of God, they're coming by their millions, and their billions, and their trillions. I crossed the Atlantic nearly 20 times, and the United States, and the Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth, and I made the point, every time I crossed, somewhere at night when they were dancing to go, stand at the deck rail, and look over it, and the boat goes whizzing past, you know, and those white waves look so nice in the dark, and I'd look down, and I'm saying, you know, I talked to myself, after I was a detective, somebody sang to the man again, and the psalmist talked to himself, he says, bless the Lord, oh my soul, and I'd look overboard and say, you buccaneers down there, at the voice of the Son of God, you're going to get up and come out. Right there where the Titanic sank, with 15 million people in that big steel casket, they're going to come up at the voice of the Son of God. Where the Athenia sank in World War II, when they torpedoed it with about 500 mothers and children, they're going to rise at the voice of the Son of God. If you go to Pearl Harbor, you'll see those great battleships that were sunk, and we've never been able to raise them, and they're full of dead American boys, and they're going to come at the voice of the Son of God. And Elijah, and Enoch, and Moses, and all the saints of all ages, won't that be something? John in his preview says, this is why I say, you see, these people do not function in what you and I know. My God, look at them! You know everything that's going to happen in the Kingdom of God, you can't explain every single mystery, but you know what's going to happen, the panorama is set before us, the timetable we're not so sure about, but this we do know, that Jesus Christ is going to reign, as Isaac Locke said, where all the sun that its successive journeys run, his kingdom stretched from shore to shore, till moons shall wax and rain no more. Blessings abound where'er he reigns, the prisoner leaps to lose his chains, the weary find eternal rest, and all the sons of want are blessed at the voice of the Son of God. I think one of the great joys of eternity, I don't believe sinners will see us judged, might do them good if they did. You know if I looked out there tonight, it's as black as night, there could be 20 people out there, they're watching this frantic Englishman doing his exercises sort of thing, and there they are all standing in the dark, I can't see them, they can see me, see there's the old man, there's his wife, there's somebody. I look in the dark, I, you know what, maybe it's a bit exaggerated you think, I believe everybody in eternal darkness, that's hell, will be able to see into heaven, it will be one of the agonies of hell to look into heaven, and see you could have been there and you're not there. Can you imagine people in hell looking at a banquet, sitting down with Abraham and Isaac and all the saints of all the ages? I don't like too many modern songs, I like one of them, it will be worth it all when we see Jesus. Life's trials will seem so small when we see Christ, one glimpse of him, dear face, all sorrow, you know five minutes inside of heaven, you'll forget you lived to be 90 or 60 or whatever you had, a cow jumped over the fence or something, something broke its leg, we won't even have one single backward thought. You know I need the cross to take care of my past, I need the resurrection to take care of my future, and my future is far more important than the past. Give me another minute, won't it be nice to see Mussolini back to Jesus? Everybody now nervous Pilate's going to be when he has to stand before Jesus and of God, oh my you never thought of that when he put Jesus to death. And Caiaphas, and Pontius Pilate, and all the Romans, Caesars, Caesar Augustus, Julius Caesar, Agrippa, all the kings of, I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God. How many commandments of God have been broken 10 million times in America alone today? And how many in all the nations of the earth? And you believe that God's going to take every man's life and every detail, yes every word is spoken, every business deal is done, it's all going to be reissued at the judgment seat. Well how long is it going to take? I don't know, we're not going anywhere anyhow. Maybe a hundred million years, that'll be great. But oh the supreme joy to see the father has committed everything into the hands of the son. And the hymn writer says, lo the tokens of his passion, I believe in heaven, we'll see those nail prints in his hand. He rose from the dead, but he didn't have a body like you and I have, he left all his blood at the cross. And he said, a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. Some of you young athletes and strong folk may not mean much to you, but we older weaker folks to think about getting a glorified body. That's the last bonus we get, won't that be wonderful? For a day with sickness, no more sickness day, no we won't need any powders or Pepto-Bismol or anything else. In that day we're going to have perfect health, perfect intelligence. Won't that be wonderful? I went to hear C.S. Lewis preach one day and when I got there I thought about it. Oh I guess maybe 500 preachers there, most of them had their collars backwards way you know, in England, because preachers are going backwards way. And here on the platform is a big hulk of a man with a big oval face and red cheeks and he's sitting there, didn't stand up to sing, he was singing. And then the chairman, I thought the chairman was going to say, oh C.S. Lewis couldn't make it, he's so busy at the university with old farmers so to speak. And he said, now we've all read Dr. C.S. Lewis's wonderful books and now I present to you this great modern scholar Dr. C.S. Lewis. Mr. Lewis, we're glad to, you're never applauded in England, that's bad manners. But anyhow, he just came up to the platform like this you know, he was weary. I believe in the resurrection. I thought all right, don't tell me. I do as well, I mean if you're voting on it, I vote both hands right away. I don't know, he got into a dissertation, I can't remember a thing of it except this, he said a friend of mine has a beautiful little girl, only one girl, they live on a nice estate and they have a lake. And the little girl wanted a pony and finally he bought the girl a pony and he and his wife used to ride every day and he said to the groomsman, now you teach my little girl all the etiquette of riding, make her a real lady. And he looked out of the library window one day and she's walking up with a pony behind her like this and he ran down and he said, darling what's wrong, did the pony try to bite you again? No. Did he try to kick you? No. But I don't want it, I don't ever see that pony again, I'll never ride it again. Well you asked me for a year to get you a pony and that's the best it is. What went wrong? Now, daddy you told me I could go through the gates of their estate and you told me when I came to the big oak tree that I could turn around and I forgot about it, I was looking at the flowers and listening to the birds and then I saw the traffic swishing past, oh daddy said one of these days you'll get in that traffic and get killed. I turned around and came back and when I came back there, behind the oak tree there's a beautiful chestnut horse, oh it was beautiful and he said I threw the reins over a post and I went and stroked the horse's head and said you're the finest, most beautiful horse I've ever seen and she said, he said that's right, that's right. He didn't quite say it like that, he said, and every time I spoke to him he said, and she said I hope I can get a pony, a horse like that, I've got such a little horse and he said that's not a horse, don't dare call it a horse, that's a pony, it's not a horse. You want to see a horse? He said he cantered round the field like that, oh it looks so beautiful, I don't know, ride this pony again, I want a horse. He said sweetheart I've watched you mount and dismount and you don't do it like a lady and you don't hold your riding prop properly and you don't sit upright enough, you've got five major faults in your riding and as soon as your groomsman can train you and get those five faults out, I'll buy you that horse, that man's got dozens of those beautiful thoroughbred. You know she said but every time I look over the fence I see that beautiful horse. Well I've told you, I'll buy it for you. And he said when I got home at night I was praying, Lord I, I long for your presence, I long to have a body like unto a glorious body, I have such a cramped intellect, I thought it was a pretty good intellect but you know I knew best, I am so serious when I said my intellect is so cramped and I'm all tied up, I want to get out, I want a glorified body, I want a glorified intellect and I don't have the power to express my worship and adoration and he said I look over the fence and I see my glorified body and he said the father said to me son you've got five things wrong in your walk with me. Number one, number two, he went through the five and he said as soon as you correct them I'll take you home and you can have a body like unto my glorious body. You know they say the art of preaching is being simple as I've told you tonight but isn't it really? And a brilliant man like that used a child's illustration and he says I can see it as the Lord began to point them out, yes Lord oh I need improvement there and I need some correction here and this needs straightening out and I certainly can improve there Lord, I won't argue anymore but I'm going to keep pressing on the upward way you know is it true? New heights I'm gaining every day, still praying as I onwards down Lord, plant my feet on higher ground. You know if he hadn't have risen it wouldn't be a bit of good praying tonight. He's at the right hand of the father living to make intercession for us. Before the throne my surety stands, my name is written on his hand. Won't it be wonderful when he raises those hands in eternity? And it says what's the last request at the end of the 150th psalm? He says read everything without a breath praise the Lord and then it's taken up in Revelation chapter five it says everything in the heavens above and the earth beneath and every creature in the air. Somebody said to me yesterday see those big mosquitoes at the back that you know if you don't know the Texas size around here the monsters they can really bite you and hurt you at least they do me maybe because I'm so sweet they all come my way but you know I believe one day that little buzzing thing that bugs around your ear will be saying hallelujah. Everything without a breath is going praise God. That's what God intended in the beginning until he got marred by sin. Everything under the sea and in the air. Oh no wonder Mr. Wesley says oh for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer's praise. You know if you saw him in his glory in his majesty every day you'd get over every hardship you'd laugh you'd spit in the face of a devil and say listen I'm as much a son of God without a dime in my pocket as I have ten thousand dollars and God loves me as much as nobody else loves me on earth and if I have a love relationship with him so what? Let me pray. Father we I'm honest when we say we marvel that the disciples forgot so soon they forgot the wonder of the mountaintop experience of transfiguration those who were there they forgot that they'd seen you raise the dead on more than one occasion you triumphed over every work of the devil and somehow their judgments got clouded they got under the weather and they forgot they didn't know the full story as we know it now they didn't know you'd appear to hundreds of men at once they didn't know that very soon let's stand and see you reverse the laws you'd reverse the law of life and came into the world without a father that you reverse the law of nature and ascend to heaven in a cloud oh Lord God save us from dumbness and blindness save us from this wretched status quo save us from living to try and defend the man who died 2,000 years ago we want to prove that power we want the power of his resurrection as Paul said with all his revelation of God with all the fact he'd been raised up to he's still saying oh but I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering being made conformable unto his death give us a first like this for God give us a thirst for holiness give us a longing to see the wretched empire of Satan the gambling empire and the drink empire and the lust empire and the film empire and the drug empire to pull down in the generation in which we live give us a loving heart for those who are tied up in cults rather the Romanists or some of the Adventists maybe not as bad as others but Lord as we think of the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses and Spiritists and the Hare Krishna people and the Mormonites and some of them put us to shame with their sacrifice and devotion oh God I cut it tonight Lord it would happen in this room that suddenly we feel the quickening of your resurrection life in our bodies in our minds in our emotions and God the title that as you raised us from the dead spiritually we want to go full speed into a lost tired prison house of the world and tell them that Jesus is not dead but he lives as we sang tonight you asked me how I know he lives he lives within my heart hmm Lord make this the most enjoyable Easter time we've ever had thank Lord what's become a tradition just to get up early Sunday morning and go out and sing in the cold or go up a mountain or something but Lord just a novelty we read off somehow appearing your resurrection majesty we pray in 10,000 places around the nation where people gather some were told only go to church on the Easter day and on the Christmas day oh God have mercy there's no reason why one person in America should go to hell we have an open Bible and through the merits of Jesus we have an open heaven but yet somehow the clogged up mess in the church God Lord if we need to get 70 it takes to get 70 oh we've got so used to this staggering story I think angels must wonder what kind of human beings we really are we can be satisfied to eat and drink and be merry and drive pretty cars wear nice clothes and somehow we've got our vision distorted the Lord I pray for myself for my darling wife for these precious folk Dale and Betty and Bill and Dick and others that I know intimately but Lord I pray for everybody in this room tonight that this Easter will be different do you feel the throbbings of eternity as we've never felt before we'll die we'll die Lord in the secret place you think of these disciples who run away but Lord when they when they saw the resurrected Christ it says they were glad when they saw the Lord and they went everywhere and they embraced hardship and punishment and penalties and prisons and privations and they did what Jesus said count it all joy and Paul from a wretched prison can write to other believers saying rejoice in the Lord and as although they didn't hear him he said rejoice in the Lord and again I say rejoice oh God put the light of eternity in our hearts put a light in our eyes that doesn't belong this world yeah put a passion in that we've never never known before in our hearts Lord if Jesus carries I pray particularly here in this valley it can become a valley of dry bones and it will unless you breathe upon us but Lord if you carry another year that some miracles will have taken place we'll have seen we will have seen our own wonderful miracles and lives as they've been raised from the dead of captive set free of people bringing as they thought the blind and the lame and they said to Jesus have mercy on my son he's a lunatic that somehow somewhere in this valley I don't care where it is Agape or here or down the garden valley or Joe Fossey's place or anywhere that somehow Lord there'll be something different this year give us one more chance in this valley dig around us like the man whose tree was to be cut down and he said just let me fertilize it one more year and if he doesn't bring forth fruits God I wonder how many of us dare say that out of our own hearts if I could say well my friends dear Lord make this my most fruitful year or cut me down Lord nothing nothing nothing can be cheap in the light of the cross and we never dare talk about sacrifice in the light of the cross and the loneliness of Gethsemane and the shame of hanging on a cross while everybody laughed and jeered and Lord we remember you never showed yourself to the world after you rose from the dead you proved you were the son of God with power in every area of the demons or the death or the sickness that they wouldn't believe you weren't going to put on a spectacular display and raise the dead for the fun of it right and Lord you've shown our generation so much of your power and we've forgotten become lazy and indifferent and we're only we pray for the suffering church tonight we think of the Siberian seven who are now Siberian six there in the embassy U.S. embassy in Moscow and we pray that this will be a very blessed special resurrection to them we believe there are hundreds of pastors and others in those prison houses in their archipelago and elsewhere suffering and almost forgotten in other areas of the world oh God it seems a fairy tale to say that you gave us power over all the power of the enemy it seems if you go to a meeting and clap our hands and have a bit of fun and a laugh it was a good service and maybe you weren't even in the place make us make me more sensitive to the spirit oh to hear somebody in the middle of a service cry out with a broken heart in their wretchedness or somebody cry out because they can't live while the world is lost or like that precious woman weeping so much over the thorns you couldn't get it out we must have revival or we perish oh God I feel the church at present at least in America and England and Christian countries so-called I believe the church is an embarrassment to you Lord I know you don't need anybody to pass your vote of confidence you don't need anybody to cheer you up you don't get depressed you must wonder why we drag our feet spirit of the living God fall afresh upon us melt us and break us and mold us and fill us and again we pray make this a bad night for the devil we really hope that this teaching has ministered to you and in some way drawn you closer to our Jesus be sure to write if we can be of any help or provide you with any additional ministry tools