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Now, I want you to take your Bible and turn to the local First Corinthians in chapter 15. First Corinthians chapter 15. 15 is what we call the resurrection chapter in the Bible. If there’s anything you want to know about the resurrection that’s probably found in the book of 1 Corinthians, it’s an awesome chapter. I want to start at the back of it, the last verse, so I’ll look in verse 58. And we’re not going to read backwards, that’s done in Hebrew, but this is in English, so we’ll just read one verse and then I’ll go somewhere else.

But in verse 58 it says, Therefore, my beloved brethren, be your steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord, your labor is not in vain in the Lord. The Lord is telling us why we should serve the Lord because your labor is not in vain. And the reason that your labor is not in vain is because our preaching is not in vain.

And our preaching is not in vain because our faith is not in vain. Now look there in 1 Corinthians 15 and look there in verse 29 because there are many that we’re beginning to question the resurrection, whether people will come back again from the dead. And so Christ had said, go into all the world and preach the gospel and baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So anytime someone is baptized because of their faith in Christ, you never baptize anybody who has never trusted Christ as their Savior.

Babies are not to be baptized. It doesn’t matter if it’s the pope that does it or a priest or anybody else or pastor or if they have not trusted Christ as their Savior they cannot legitimately be baptized. Pure and simple. Baptism is for believer. Those who believe that when Christ died he died for them. Baptism is a pitch of the death, the burial, and the resurrection not only of Christ because Christ was buried and rose again. But when you stand in the water, not baptized a lot of people, there’s a picture of Christ on the cross.

But when you go under the waters, a picture of your burial. When you come up out of the waters, a picture of your resurrection. So why should you be baptized in water if there is no resurrection? People need to understand. The baptism is a picture of of the death, burial, and resurrection. So he says, if you don’t believe in the resurrection, why then are you baptized? Under what are you baptized? Because when you’re baptized, you’re baptized for the dead.

You see, I was born into this whole sinful world with an old and this was my first birth. As the Bible called it, this is the old man. I got an old man, you got an old man. Even if you’re a woman, you got an old man. This is your all sinful nature that you were born with. But when you trusted Christ as your Savior, believe in that He died and paid for all the sins of that old first birth.

So I cannot have the new birth born of the Spirit until I have the death of the flesh that was born in sin. So you see, whenever you trusted Christ as your Savior, that was the death of the first birth, because his death was put to your account. And so when you trusted Christ as Savior, He gave you a new birth. You were born of God and you became a child of God. So whenever you are baptized in water, you’re going under the water, baptized in water, is a picture of your death of the old man.

But when you trust Christ’s Savior and you come up out of the water, it’s a picture of your resurrection and newness of life, a new birth. So this was the baptism of water and this is what John did and others have done, but the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the new birth is the one that Christ does. He gives you eternal life and places you into the body of Christ. As though when Christ died on that cross, You were on that cross and whenever he was buried you were buried and when he came back again from the dead you came back from the dead with him Because I have been crucified with Christ Nevertheless, I live Not I but the light that I live now I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me So here in this verse 29 else

What shall they do which are baptized for the dead if the dead rise not at all? Why are they then baptized for the dead? Because see you baptized for the death of the old man and the resurrection is the new man So why would you do that? Unless you don’t understand something So he says if if and he mentions it quite a few times. So look there in verse one First Corinthians in chapter 15 and look there in verse one But look what he says here.

In verse 1, moreover brethren, so he’s talking to those that believe, I declare unto you the gospel. Now the resurrection of Christ, some people deny it and some people declare it. I like to declare it. I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also you have received and wherein you stand, standing is a positional truth. You see I once was lost, that was my position. I was a lost man. That’s how God saw me. I was a lost man going to hell.

When I trusted Christ I have a new position, a new standing. I I’m now in Christ, and this is where I stand. I have a new birth. I’m God’s child, and as a child of God, I’m going to heaven when I die. That standing can never be changed. It cannot be altered by God or me or you.” So that is a standing, he says, in this verse. The gospel which I preached unto you, where also you have received and wherein you stand and get the next verse, by which also ye are saved by the gospel, you’re saved, if you keep in memory what I preached unto you unless you have believed in vain.

Now that looks like double talk. You can know you have eternal life unless you believed in vain. How do I know if I believed in vain? I thought when I believed it, I believed it. I believed that I have eternal life, he that believeth on me, hath, present tense, right now, hath everlasting life. How do you know you have everlasting life? Because God said so. So he says, if you believe it, you got it. So if you believe it, you ought to be able to say, I have it, I have everlasting life.

And if it’s everlasting life, how long would it last? Forever, if it lasts forever. And all my sins are paid, then where am I going when I die? I asked a couple of people this simple little question. I do it often. Isn’t it true that you’ve heard all your life, that when Christ died, He paid for all the sins of the world? I said, yeah. If He paid for all the sins of the world, why should you or me or anybody, why are we going to hell to pay for sin if He already paid for it?

You don’t pay for something twice. So why am I going to hell? I don’t know. I said, because you have to believe He did it for you. And if you believe He did it for you and paid for all of your sins, where there’s only two places there’s heaven and the hell. So I can’t go to hell to pay for sin because I don’t have any sense to pay for it. So I’m going to heaven. So why would I try to work my way to heaven if I’m already going to heaven?

So I don’t have to go to church to go to heaven because I’m already going to heaven. I don’t have to give money to go to heaven because I’m already going to heaven. And some people never see it because it’s so simple, they miss it. They’re looking for something hard and complicated. So he gave the gospel and the gospel is the good news of why Christ died. He died. Why did he die? To pay for the sins of the world, okay?

Three days later he came back from the dead. That was, he was raised for our justification to justify you and I. He came back from the dead and his body with the scars and his hands and his feet and his sight is simply the proof of payment. He is my living receipt. You ever get gas? You get a receipt? Get groceries? Get a receipt. Christ is my receipt. He is my paid-in-law. He was my payment for my sin. He died for me.

So now look there in this last part of this verse when he says, unless you have believed in vain. Now how do you know if you have believed in vain? Wouldn’t it be nice to know that you stand as a child of God and know that you’re going to heaven? Because you believe the gospel? And then he says unless you believe in vain. Well, how do you believe in the other way? Believe us, believe. Well, he says, you believed in vain if something else isn’t true.

Oh, what wasn’t true? And that is if Christ did not come back from the dead. If Christ did not come back from the dead, me trusting Him was in vain. It served no purpose. Why? Because a dead man can’t save me. A dead man can’t give me life. He died, but if he did not come back from the dead, he can’t save anybody. So he makes a statement, for I delivered unto you, first of all, that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins, most powerful five words in the Bible.

Christ died for my sins. Therefore, I don’t have to pay for my sins because Christ paid for my sins. He said, they don’t deserve that. I know. That’s why he says, by grace, or you say through faith that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God not of works lest any man should boast. That’s why salvation is the gift of God. It’s free so that you don’t have to brag about it and boast about how good you are.

And I remember I talked to this one lady and she told me, she says, I know I’m going to heaven because I’ve been good. I says, that’s the shame she had in the heavy store. I says, there is no good heaven. There’s a perfect heaven, but there’s not a good heaven. I says, you have to be perfect to go to the perfect heaven. Izan. And the Bible says none are perfect. There is no good heaven. There’s not an almost heaven.

Some people say, I’m almost saved. You’re either saved or lost. You’re either a hundred percent saved or a hundred percent lost, but there is no percentages. And so the Bible makes this statement, Christ died for our sins. Verse 4, and that He was buried and that He rose again the third day according to the scriptures. then look at the witnesses that verify, hey, I saw him. I saw him after he was crucified, after he was buried. I saw him after his resurrection.”

And then he says in verse 5, and that he was seen of Cephas, then of the 12. After that he was seen above 500 brethren at once. That ought to be enough of witnesses. Now if you had a court of law and you brought in 500 witnesses that says the same thing, you would believe them. In court sometimes they only want to get two or three witnesses. What’s wrong with five hundred? Well, you know, you can’t believe them. And then he makes this statement in verse seven.

After that he was seen of James and all of the apostles. Last of all, he was seen of me also as one born out of due time. For I am the least of the apostles and I’m not meet to be called in a puzzle because I persecuted the Church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am. And His grace which was bestowed upon me was not, and here’s those two words again, was not in vain.

God’s grace was not bestowed upon me in vain. Therefore I labored more abundantly than they all. And why He did what He did is the reason He wants us to do what what we should do and therefore brethren, I beseech it that you always consistently, all the time, be unmovable, unblameable, striving together for the sake of the gospel. You understand that it’s not in vain. Your labor in the Lord is not in vain because Paul says it’s not in vain.

I did not labor in vain and it’s not in vain for a reason. So he made this statement. verse 11 he says, therefore whether it was I or they, so we preach you believe. We preach you believe. We tell the gospel people believe it unless they believe in vain. So how can they believe in vain? For this reason, looking for verse 12. Right during your Bible, verse 12. Now if if Christ be preached that He rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?

For if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen? And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain and your faith is in vain. You see, if Christ did not come back from the dead and we try to convince people to trust in our dead Savior, they can’t save anybody that didn’t come back from the dead because that’s what we preached that he did, then you’re trusting something that isn’t true. Did you realize that there is a lot of people in this world, a lot of churches, a lot of preachers that are telling people that they have to be good to go to heaven and they’re teaching it in vain?

Because you see, they worship God in vain. Because see, it doesn’t matter how many candles you like, how many prayers you make, how many knee bends you do, how much territory you cover, on your hands and your knees and the blood, nothing matters. You do all of that, it’s all in vain. Giving all that money, being nice to your neighbor is all in vain if you’re trusting that to get you to heaven. It’s to know they’ll. It accomplishes zero.

Christ has become of no effect to whosoever is seeking to justify themselves by their works. And they don’t see it, they don’t know it. And yet they keep Christ on the cross. Christ is not on the cross anymore. He was there and he died and he paid for our sins. He did not go to hell to pay for our sins. He went to the place of paradise and delivered them out and took them to heaven. The Christ suffered for us on the cross and paid for our sins on the cross.

And that’s when he said those words, it is finished, not in another day or not in two days, another three days. No, no, no, no, it was finished on the cross when he died and he died for us. Now look back there in verse 14. And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain and your faith is also vain. It means you’re believing something that is not true. And then he says in verse 15, yay, and we are found to be Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Oh, Jimmy, false witnesses of God. You’re a false witness because you’re saying something that isn’t true. If Christ did not come back from the dead, why are you telling people that He is alive and that he can save anybody. Where is the good news? If Christ didn’t come back from the dead, and many of these other 500 that were still around, some of them, and some had already fallen asleep up there in verse 6, where are the women? Where are they?

If there is no resurrection, Christ didn’t come back. Where’s the guarantee anybody will ever come back? And if they’re all dead, What were your bad ties for? The water baptism is a picture of your Holy Spirit baptism. It is a baptism of the dead. Something died coming up out of the water. Something lives. It’s the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It’s whenever you believe that He did that for you and He gives you as a free gift everlasting life. So look there in verse 15 again, yea, and we are found false witnesses of God because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ.

We’re testifying. That’s what we preach. They are teaching we preach the death, barrel, and the resurrection of Christ as the gospel of Jesus Christ. There are some people today that believe that death is not necessary and it’s not important. They are wrong. This is the message that he said he preached and he delivered the gospel and he said this, that raised up Christ, home he raised not up if, so be that he the dead rise not. If the dead doesn’t rise.

Look at verse 16, for if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised. And in verse 17, and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain. This is why you’re believing in vain, unless you believe in vain. You believe in vain if Christ did not come back from the dead. Let me ask you a question. Did Christ come back from the dead?

And if he did, then my faith is not in vain and your faith is not in vain. And if our faith in the Lord is not in vain, our labor is not in vain. Therefore we should be unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. For as much as you know that it’s not in vain. But for you and I that no crisis our Savior, that means He’s coming back again. The one that did all of this is coming back.

But see, He can’t come back if He never got up. But he did get up. So look what he says in verse 17. And if Christ be not raised, your faith is in vain. Yee are yet in your sins. What it means is this, you were born in sin. You live in sin and you die in sin. Born lost, lived lost, die lost. But when you and I trust Christ as our Savior, yes, we were in sin. That was our position.

after you trust Christ as your Savior. Now you’re in Christ. I am in Christ. That is my new position and it’s not in vain. And they make this statement here. If it wasn’t true, if Christ did not come back from the dead, in verse 18, then they also which are fallen asleep died in Christ are perished. They’re lost and they’re not saved and it’s all in vain. Did you realize there’s a lot of people over the years that have suffered an awful lot for the cause of Christ if it was all for nothing?

Wouldn’t that be a shame? Like a man clamored a ladder for 20 years and found out it was lain against the wrong wall and there’s people that have gone into the arenas and have been killed because of lions and so forth and they’ve been put on sharp stakes and put oil on top of them and set on fire and uses lamp post around Nero’s play. All these wicked things that have been done over the years and people die in because they believe Christ came back from the dead and they would not deny.

They say, you see, they’re Christ or Caesar, who is King? And they would deny Caesar Christ is king and pay the price for that. If it was all in vain. Here you have those disciples who were with Christ for three and a half years. And yes, on their graduation day, their final exam, they blew it. They failed miserably, but Christ come talking to him. And next thing you know, these same men that were afraid and running and hiding, all of a sudden became some of the most strongest, the boldest, courageous man you’ve ever heard of in your life.

No man has ever lived with all the courage that these people had to go into all the world and all have suffered in terrible ways. By choice, I don’t think they would have done so if that all this was just a hoax. but they saw Jesus after his resurrection and they knew it was true. They knew it was true. We’ll go back here now and look in verse 12. Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, he did.

He did rise from the dead. In verse 13 and if there be no resurrection of the dead in Christ is not risen but he He did rise from the dead. He did. In verse 14, if Christ be not risen, then ours are preaching vain. Your faith is vain. But if Christ did rise from the dead, it means our preaching is not in vain and that our faith is not in vain. It means that what I’m saying and what I’m doing is not in vain.

It’s for a purpose and it is the truth. It doesn’t matter how the world looks at things. It is all dependent upon can we see things through the eyes of the Lord? If we could only see this world through his eyes, how much more would we understand? How much more would we do to believe that what God says is true? When he makes this statement up there in verse 19, look what he says, if in this life only We have hope.

We are of all men, most miserable. Because in this life, if that’s all there is to it, there’s no joy, there’s no real peace, no happiness, no security. But you know, when you really know the Lord and you know you have eternal life and you know you’re going to heaven when you die, did you know you are a child of the king? I want you to take your Bible and turn with me over there to the book of Ephesians in chapter 2.

Ephesians chapter 2, these are two of my favorite verses in the whole Bible. You don’t know what they are, but I want to show them to you. Ephesians chapter 2, verse 8 and 9. Verse 8 and verse 9. Look in verse 8, 4 by grace are you saved through faith, that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Not of works lest any man should boast. Did you know that there’s people who can’t figure out what that says?

They don’t know what that means. Let me explain it to you. You see, there’s a place called hell. The Bible says it’s a pretty hot place and you don’t want to go there, a place of torment. So you want to be saved from it. So God says, because we’ve all sinned, we have a debt to pay, and nothing pays that debt except our debt. So Christ took our place and He died for us, came back from the dead. So whenever we believe it, then God gives us eternal life.

And this verse says, for by grace, grace is not the name of a girl. Grace is unmerited. It means you don’t deserve it. You don’t work for it. It means you don’t do good deeds for it. It’s a surprise. How many people say, yeah, you say by grace, but. And then they contradict grace. You’ve got to do this and then you’ve got to stop and turn. No, grace means nothing. Nothing. You don’t have to qualify. If you’re a sinner, you qualify.

Isn’t that good news? Any sinner’s in here. What do you know? You qualify. If you are a sinner, you qualify for salvation. Christ died for all sinners. And I know it’s hard to say, I am a sinner. This is bad as a husband trying to say to his wife, I was wrong. It’s almost America that ever happens. By grace are you saved through faith just by you believing it. Christ did the work so that you don’t have to. And all you had to do is believe it.

You can do this. This is doable. You can do this. It’s on the level that anybody can have it. Whosoever. Anybody. If you believe that when Christ died, He died for you. I told people the other day, I think it was last night. Did you know that Christ would rather die than live without you? It would rather die than live without you. That’s how much He loves you. And notice this, and that not of yourself, not of yourselves, it all depends on how you translate it.

You know how I translate not of yourselves? That not of yourselves. And it says, it is the gift of God. You know how I translate that? It is the gift of God. See, I’m pretty good, ain’t it? It’s already been translated. Oh, God, you would believe it. It’s the gift. It’s the gift of God. That’s why Christ died. They make all these movies. But they don’t tell you how to know you have eternal life. Why did he die? The passion of Christ.

I’d have loved to have about five minutes at the end of it. to tell you, why did he do all of that? So that everybody who so ever can have the free gift of eternal life. It’s free. And most people don’t know it. It’s a passion that is in all the world. You’ve been looking at the world for a long time. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold.

We pray that you are blessed by today’s message. If you have enjoyed our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, you can reach Bibleline and pledge your support to keep us on the air in your area by dialing tool free 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. To listen to today’s message again or to obtain a free download of any of our Bibleline programs, just go to our homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the radio broadcast link. If you are in the area, we welcome you to visit us.

The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Our Sunday morning services begin at 10-30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcasts of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline, and now a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. Friend, one day it will happen. The trumpet will sound and we will be changed. Caught up to meet the Lord in the air.

So live today and every day. Believing that the Lord is coming soon and just keep looking up.