If the Resurrection Never Happened

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Turn with me in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. 1 Corinthians chapter 15. You know, last night I stayed up probably later than I should have, especially for Sunday morning coming up, but I was watching the movie The Ten Commandments.

Most of y’all have seen that, I’m sure. And as I watched it for probably the 50th time, I should have gone to bed because it was on DVR anyway, and I’ve seen it, so I don’t know why I stayed up watching it, but I just get enthralled by it every time. As I watched it, I was amazed not only at how God worked throughout the story, and I know the movie’s not completely faithful to every detail of the book of Exodus, but as I would watch things, I would remember things from the book of Exodus and remember how faithful God had been to his people, how incredible the story was that God worked things out just the way he did, how incredible God’s hand of providence was in working these details out, and thinking how much different things would have been, how much different history would have been if, for example, Moses had said, no, I won’t go back to those people.

Or if the basket made of reeds that Moses’ mother sent him afloat on the Nile had sunk and the baby had been drowned, there would have been no Moses. If the soldiers had gotten there just a little bit earlier to execute him before she sent him down the river, not up the river, but down the river. How much different it would have been if God said, I’m tired of listening to you Israelites whine all the time and said, I’m not going to deliver you.

Folks, how different things would have been. And so many places the story would have gone in a completely different direction if one detail had been off. If one thing had changed, it could have thrown everything else out of whack, but yet God’s hand was on the situation and ensured that things worked out the way they were supposed to do.

It’s incredible the way God can pull off the unimaginable. You know, we see that in other places. There are entire bodies of film and literature devoted to the idea of if you change one event, what else would change as a result?

You know, you’ve got the book 1984 where they go back and say, what if the outcome of World War II had been just a little bit different? And if you’re familiar with the book at all, they end up with just this nightmare of oppressive government. They’re watching people through their TV screens, and you can be tortured and killed for the slightest little thing.

And only because one or two little things changed at the end of World War II. My dad’s always been a fan of the Back to the Future movies and where he went back and he tinkered with just one or two things and everything gets messed up when you start changing the past. We wonder in our own lives, too, what if such and such had turned out differently? Have you ever wondered that?

What if I had done this differently? What if this had happened or not happened? I’ve thought about what if I went to college out east like I planned on?

I would never have met Christian, probably. I wouldn’t be married to her today, so I think I got the better end of that deal. We think, well, man, if I had just been a little quicker going down the road, I would have been involved in that accident. I thought about that Monday.

There was that big pile-up, not pile-up, but that explosion with the RV on 540, and Christian and I were about 40 minutes behind that, and I thought if we hadn’t stopped at that store to look for her in Eastern Tress, we might have been there involved in that. And just to think how much differently life would turn out if one thing changed, one little thing, one seemingly insignificant detail. I thought about it this morning.

If I had been a little faster, would my son have still thrown down and broken the big bottle of white nail polish all over the kitchen tile that is waiting for me to finish cleaning up when I get home? Would that have happened if one little detail had been different? We wonder those things about our lives.

Folks, one seemingly insignificant detail can change the trajectory of everything, can change the course of everything. Folks, the resurrection is one of those details. Not that it’s an insignificant detail.

But in the world we live in today, so many people, even people who profess to believe in Jesus, treat the resurrection as if it doesn’t matter. They can take it or leave it. We talked about this last Sunday morning, that there are churches today, if you watched the History Channel at all this weekend and heard the wizards of smart from all of these fancy theological seminaries being interviewed, there are brilliant minds today who think they can take or leave the resurrection.

They can believe in Jesus. They can follow Jesus and not believe in the resurrection. It baffles my mind.

Now, I’m not the smartest person I’ve ever met, but we talked about last week, last Sunday night, I’m pretty skeptical, but there’s enough evidence for the resurrection that that’s the only conclusion I can come to. I have to believe in the resurrection. What baffles me even more is that these brilliant minds who profess to love God, profess to read the Bible, they say we can follow Jesus, we can love Jesus, but that resurrection thing, that’s just a fairy tale.

Folks, according to the Bible, if the resurrection is a fairy tale, that changes everything. Changes everything. And I don’t mean to be insulting if any of you are sitting out there today and say, well, I’m here because I’m here with my family.

I really kind of think the resurrection is a fairytale, but mom or whoever wanted me to come, so I’m here. I don’t mean to be insulting if that’s why you’re here. We’re glad you’re here regardless.

But I do want you to understand that according to God’s word, according to this book here, if the resurrection did not happen, there’s no just, I believe in Jesus, I love Jesus, I’m going to follow Jesus. Everything changes if the resurrection had never happened. I told one of the men in our church this week that I had planned to talk about something else this morning, but I was going to preach this morning on if the resurrection never happened.

He got a funny look on his face. I said, I can understand your shock, but it kind of depends on who’s sharing the message. If it was a famed atheist like Richard Dawkins, I’d be a little concerned about a message called if the resurrection never happened.

But hopefully I’ve laid out my case well enough for why I believe in it that you understand where I’m coming from. This morning I want to talk to you about if the resurrection never happened, what might things look like today? Now, things would be different all over the world.

Things would be different in our country. You know, I submit that it might have been significant enough that the United States might not even be here, but we won’t go into that today. Just in our churches, just in our little religious circles, how might things be different today?

This is not just a hypothetical question that I came up with from reading books and watching movies. This is a hypothetical question that Paul himself explored in his letter to the Corinthians. What would be different if the resurrection hadn’t happened?

Because even in that day, when there were still eyewitnesses walking around who had seen Jesus crucified, who had seen him put in his tomb, and seen him risen again, who had touched the nail prints in his hands, who were among the hundreds and hundreds who saw him in Jerusalem after he rose again from the dead, even in the day when there were still those eyewitnesses present, people were already starting to doubt the resurrection. And so Paul writes to the people at Corinth, okay, if you want to doubt the resurrection but say we’re still going to follow Jesus anyway, let’s look at what really happens if the resurrection weren’t true. We’re going to start in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 12.

It says, Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection from the dead? There were people that it wasn’t just that they didn’t buy the idea of Christ being resurrected. It was the fact that they didn’t believe a resurrection was possible, period.

That God or no God, they didn’t believe people rise again from the dead. Folks, we still hear this. We still hear this today.

It’s not just people saying, well, I believe the resurrection of Christ is a fairy tale. It’s the same argument we hear from people who say, well, when you die, you die, and that’s it. There’s nothing more.

Folks, the Bible’s very clear that there is something after death, and that one day there will be a resurrection. Everybody, hear me on this, everybody will be resurrected. Those who trust in Christ will be resurrected to be with Christ, and those who have never trusted Christ, those who have rejected Him, will be resurrected to spend eternity apart from Christ. But make no mistake, there will be a resurrection.

And he proved that there would be a resurrection by himself rising again from the dead. And so Paul says, if Christ is preached, if it’s been preached to you, Corinthians, and if you profess to believe this gospel that we preach, that Christ has been risen from the dead, it’s an integral part of the gospel, and you say you believed it, how can you say there’s no resurrection from the dead? How can you say that when you die, you die, and that’s it?

Verse 13, he says, but if there be no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. He tells the people of Corinth that that’s your attitude, that you just die and it’s over with, then Christ couldn’t have been risen from the dead. If there’s no resurrection, there’s no resurrection.

If this is all there is, then how could Christ have been the exception? How could he have risen from the dead? Verse 14 says, and if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith also is vain.

He says this actually in two places in this passage, that if Christ hasn’t been raised, all of this is vain or meaningless. He says our preaching is vain and your faith is vain. He said if death is the end, if there’s nothing else to it, then Christ can’t have.

. . Excuse me, I’m getting a little tongue-tied today.

It’s what happens when your mind moves faster than your mouth. If there’s no resurrection, if death is just the end, then Christ can’t have been risen. And if Christ can’t have been risen, then what are we all doing here?

Corinthians, what’s the point of coming to church? What’s the point of studying what Christ told us? What’s the point of any of this if Christ didn’t rise again from the dead?

Verse 15, Yea, and we are found, notice this, he lumps himself in here with this, Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ, whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. He said, and if the dead don’t rise, and we’ve been coming and testifying to you of the fact that Jesus Christ rose again from the dead, then we’ve come to you as false witnesses. We are liars, he says, if Christ wasn’t raised again from the dead.

So we’ve got people that are one day going to die and just go in the ground, coming together for really no purpose at all, every week getting together because they’re being lied to. Verse 16, for if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised. Verse 17, and if Christ be not raised, he says it again here, your faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins.

He says what you’ve believed, everything about it, if Christ is not raised and you’ve been lied to and all of this is meaningless, then your faith is meaningless. And you know those sins that we said were forgiven when you trusted Christ, when you heard and received the gospel message? Yeah, that was all a lie too, and you’re still in your sins, and you’re still accountable before God, and destined for the eternal judgment that’s the reward for those sins.

You’re yet in your sins. He presents a really bleak picture, kind of a depressing picture here to these Corinthians. Then they also, which are fallen asleep in Christ, are perished.

He had comforted the churches before because many of them wondered. They thought Jesus was coming back immediately. Notice when he said, I come again soon, soon on God’s timetable, and soon on our timetable are not the same thing.

So they were expecting, oh, he’ll be gone a few days maybe. And then when people started to die and he hadn’t come back yet, they were really worried about what was happening to their fellow believers, their friends and their loved ones. And he comforted them saying, we will all be resurrected one day.

And he tells them here that if Christ didn’t rise again, then also those who have fallen asleep, it’s a euphemism in the Bible for death, then they also which have fallen asleep in Christ are perished. They’ve just died and that’s it. And verse 19, if in this life only we have hope in Christ, if the only hope we have from Christ is that he can somehow teach us how to have a better life here on earth, if that’s the only thing we can hope for from Christ, Paul says we are of all men most miserable.

We are most miserable. But they’ve only changed one thing. It’s just the resurrection’s a fairytale.

Come on, nobody believes that anymore anyway. I do. This church does.

Men way smarter than I will ever be, or think about being, believe in the resurrection. You don’t have to be foolish or backwards to believe in the resurrection. You just have to believe this book right here.

But he says if the resurrection never happened, you know, it’s not just that we take, Do you remember that game Jenga? That’s what it’s called, where you stack the blocks and you see how many you can pull out and it still stands up and whoever knocks it down loses? Have you all ever played that game?

Okay, some of you have played it. This is not a game of Jenga where you can take a block out of the tower, being the resurrection, and everything still stands up and you just move it wherever you want it to go. Folks, this whole thing, when it comes to the resurrection, is like a house of cards.

And if the resurrection is pulled out of the bottom, everything goes. Can we be that vulnerable to say that as Christians? As a preacher, I’m telling you that if the resurrection is a lie, we got nothing.

There is no, well, we’re still going to try to maintain that we’re true. No, if the resurrection didn’t happen, we should just close up and go home because that’s it. This is not just an insignificant detail.

And so many people treat it like an insignificant detail that we can believe in Christ, we can love Christ, we can follow Christ, but don’t ask us to believe that fairy tale stuff. Folks, if the resurrection is a fairy tale, it changes everything. And he laid out five places it changes.

I don’t normally like to preach five points, but I go with what the Bible says. So that’s what I have this morning. We’re going to move through them very quickly because we’ve already talked about some of them.

But first of all, if the resurrection never happened, our preaching is meaningless. He says here that our preaching is vain. If you come here to hear me and I tell you week after week about the hope you have in Jesus Christ and he never resurrected from the dead, then I’m just babbling with empty words.

Because if he never rose again from the dead to prove that he was who he said he was, he was just some man who died on the cross and we have no hope at all within him. for eternal life. And so I can preach to you and I can tell you trust Christ, it’s empty, it’s meaningless.

I can tell you try to live right, try to live a life that’s pleasing to Christ. Forgive me for saying this because I’m speaking hypothetically, but at that point, who cares what Christ wants from you because he’s just a man. Folks, our preaching is meaningless. He said, if Christ be not risen, then our preaching is vain.

It’s empty. It’s ridiculous. So why do even Christian, professing Christian people say, I’m not going to believe, I don’t believe in the resurrection, but I’m going to go sit and listen to the preacher and try to live a better life.

Who cares at that point? Am I being too honest about this? Who cares what the preacher thinks or says?

Who cares what this book says if the resurrection never happened? Because this book says, that’s kind of a circular reasoning, isn’t it? Who cares what this book says?

What this book says because this book says. But after that, who cares? Because this book says that if he wasn’t risen again, then our preaching is meaningless.

The ministry, the word that Paul had taken to the people would have been worthless if Christ had not risen from the dead. Second of all, if the resurrection never happened, then our faith is foolish. He says, not just in one place, but in two places, in verses 14 and verse 17, that if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain.

The very things that we believe, the very things that we stake our lives and our reputations on, the very things that get us through the darkest days of our life, our trust in Christ, our trust in the goodness of God, our trust in His mercy, His blessings, His Word, all of it is meaningless. And it’s a foolish thing to believe if Christ wasn’t raised. Can I tell you, there are a lot of religions in the world.

There are a lot of religions in the world, and there are a lot of things that people teach. If Christ is different, because here we have a leader, a teacher, a prophet, a Messiah, who died and rose again from the dead, where all the other religious leaders died, why would we, then he’s on equal footing with everybody else. Why would we choose his teachings over anybody else’s.

It’d be foolish. See, the resurrection is what made the difference, because it proved that he’s not just another religious leader spouting his ideas of how you can earn your way to God, but he actually is God in the flesh and purchased our pardon from God for our sins. Well, folks, if the resurrection never happened, then the stuff we believe is foolish, and we need to get rid of it.

I’m not telling you, by the way, to get rid of it, but I’m saying if you’re going to not believe the resurrection, you might as well not believe any of the rest of it. I hope you’ll believe the resurrection and believe the rest of it and obey what God tells us. Third of all, if the resurrection never happened, then our testimony of God is wrong.

It’s just flat out wrong. Paul called himself a false witness, called himself a liar. Not only was he lying to the people, but he was breaking one of God’s commandments, one of the Ten Commandments, thou shalt not bear false witness.

I didn’t just learn that last night from the movie, by the way. But if Christ never was raised, if the resurrection never happened, if it never happened, then our testimony of God is wrong. The things that I tell you on a weekly basis that God has spoken in his word, they’re wrong.

And I’m wrong in what I’m telling you. When you go and tell somebody how Christ died for you and rose again, and he can forgive your sins, and they just need to trust folks, then you’re wrong in what you tell those people about God. If Christ wasn’t raised again from the dead, we’re just wrong.

And if we don’t believe the resurrection, we know that’s wrong. And that means that everything else we’re telling is wrong, and we continue to tell it, then we’re just liars. And again, I’m not wrong.

I’m not lying to you. I’ve been wrong about a great many things in my life, but not the resurrection. But folks, if it’s wrong, then why would you go to church and care what they have to tell you?

Because they’re lying to you. Fourth of all, if the resurrection never happened, our sins, folks, get this, this is important. If the resurrection never happened, our sins cannot and were not, they cannot be and were not forgiven.

If the resurrection never happened, our sins cannot be forgiven and they were not. When Jesus Christ died on the cross, he took the sins of mankind on himself. The Bible says that he knew no sin was made to become sin for us, and he was crucified on that cross, bearing God’s wrath and the punishment for our sins, and providing a perfect sacrifice to pay the penalty for the sins that we owe.

And as he hung on that cross, the last thing he said before he died was, it is finished. Not, it’s over. Not, I’m done for, I’m gone.

But the actual word he used is an accounting term meaning paid in full. And when he said it’s finished, he meant the work of paying off our sins. He didn’t have to go to hell and be tortured by Satan.

He doesn’t have to be crucified week after week on the altar. When he died on the cross, he said at that point, it is finished. It’s done.

Paid in full. But folks, any man could say that. Any just regular old man could say, I’m dying for your sins and I’m going to die.

How do we know he’s telling the truth? How do we know that he’s the sacrifice sent from God? Because folks, his resurrection testified to the fact that he was who he said he was and that he could do what he said he could do.

But if Christ was not risen, then he’s just some man who died and who could do nothing to pay for our sins. That’s why Paul said, if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins. Those sins that you’ve cast on Christ, that you’ve trusted in him for, those sins that you’ve believed forgiven because he paid for them, if he wasn’t able to save, then you’re still under the weight of those.

Folks, if the resurrection never happened, our sins cannot be forgiven, and they were not. And fifth, if the resurrection never happened, our hope is gone. Our hope is gone because, see, we have this hope of the resurrection.

We have this hope that one day he will raise up those who’ve trusted in him. And, folks, if you believe he could raise himself up, then it’s not a stretch to believe he could raise the rest of us. If while he’s dead, he can still raise.

. . It’s not outside the realm of possibility that he could raise the rest of us up.

But we have this hope as Christians that if you’ve trusted in Christ, if your sins have been forgiven, you belong to him, then one day he’s going to raise up all of us, and those who’ve trusted in him, we get to go be with him. And we get to be with him in a place called heaven. Folks, heaven’s going to be a wonderful place.

We don’t know that much about it. I’d be careful about reading some of the books that are out because they don’t know either. We don’t know that much about it other than what’s stated out right in the Bible, but we do know from what we’re told that heaven’s going to be a wonderful place.

Folks, that’s not even the best part. We get to spend eternity, after we’ve been raised up, we get to spend eternity if we’ve trusted Him in the presence of the One who loved us enough to die for us when we were not lovable at all, when we were dead in our sins. And we get to be with Him.

Folks, when I think about it, I feel like a little kid sometimes who’s just waiting there by the door for my parents to come and get me. I remember being a little kid. I didn’t necessarily care where we were going.

I just wanted to be with mom and dad. And folks, the best thing we need to know about heaven is that Jesus is going to be there. And we have this hope that we don’t care exactly what it’s like, just that he’s there and we get to spend eternity with him.

And folks, we have that hope. And those who’ve trusted him, who’ve gone on before or preceded us in death, they have that hope as well, unless Christ wasn’t raised. Because if he wasn’t raised again from the dead, he doesn’t have the power to raise anybody else.

Because if he doesn’t have the power to raise himself, he’s not who he said he was. Folks, not only are we still in our sins, but we have no hope. We’re separated from God eternally and destined for a place that the Bible calls hell.

A place of fire and torment and, more importantly than that, a place of separation from God and from the Son, Jesus Christ. Folks, the resurrection is not just an insignificant detail. If it didn’t happen, it changes everything. But folks, the resurrection did happen and that did change everything.

Christ rose again from the dead like the Bible said he did. He rose again like the Bible said He did, and like He promised that He would. And as a result, we have the things that we’ve talked about.

We can have faith. We can have a knowledge of God. Our sins can be forgiven, and we can be assured that we’ll spend eternity with Him if we trust in Him.

But folks, we can’t treat the resurrection like we can take it or leave it. It matters. It meant something, and everything would be different without it.

Folks, the reason that He had to die, or the reason the resurrection is important, is because it proved that He was who He said He was, and that He could do what He said He could do.