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Welcome to studies with Stearman. Join us as we look deeper into the Bible. Strengthen your faith with us even as we see the day approaching. And now here's gary. Turn to First Corinthians 15. We're going to look at the implications of the resurrection of Christ. The importance of the physical resurrection of Christ cannot be overlooked. Time and again the apostles stressed that Jesus rose physically as the new man. And I don't think that there is a full understanding of the implications of the new man, the implications for the universe, the implications for each of us as individuals. Now we've been talking about the fact of the physical resurrection of Jesus, First Corinthians 15, 1, 11. We're talking about the importance of the resurrection, that is the dynamics of the resurrection. First Corinthians 15, 12, 19. We talked about the order of the resurrections and how important it was to understand that Christ's resurrection corresponded with the Jewish festival cycle he's called the first fruits. And we looked at the Jewish festivals last week to sort of see how that strengthened our view of the resurrection. And then we looked at the moral implications, the ethical implications, societal and cultural implications of Christ's resurrection, starting in verse 29 and moving on through about verse 34. And then we had concluded last week in verse 35. But some man will say, how are the dead raised up and with what body do they come? There was in Paul's day and there is today, great, great debate about the resurrection. A lot of Christians do not believe in, for example, the rapture of the church. And if they do, they might not believe in the pre tribulation rapture of the church, which promises resurrection, it promises physical resurrection because Christ, the archetype of the resurrection, rose physically. Today, as in Paul's day, there's conflict about the belief in the resurrection. Some people believe in spiritual resurrection, some people don't really believe in a resurrection at all. They believe that man will somehow become a spiritual being at some point at the end of the world, whatever that is. And the end of the world is loosely described as one day you're walking down the street and there's this bright flash, poof. It's about a millionth of a second without any warning. And suddenly you're in a spirit form. And so for them, that's a satisfactory explanation of the resurrection. It's not satisfactory for me because I want to be like Jesus. And the Bible says that I should desire to be like Jesus in every way. I should try to imitate him and I should follow him and Go the way that he went. Well, to follow him, I'm going to have to follow him in a physical body, because he made sure that everybody understood that he was physically resurrected. He was born a human being, lived as a human being. He was resurrected as a human being, albeit a perfected human being. And he's a human being today, which is an astonishing truth, if you stop and think about it, that God took upon himself human form in order to create a new kind of humanity. But Some will say, 1 Corinthians 15:35, how are the dead raised up, and with what body do they come? Somebody's going to say, you mean the dead will receive physical bodies? No, I don't believe that. That's the rhetorics of verse 35. Paul answers, Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened or made alive, except it die. And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be but bare grain may be chance of wheat or some other grain, but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body. So Paul is using a figure here to explain the physical resurrection. Everybody knows about seeds. I think probably some of the earliest questions we ask as children have to do with seed. We see them and we handle them, and we come to an early consciousness, the fact that if you plant a seed, you'll get a little plant. It's a mystery. And sometimes the plant gives flowers and fruit and all sorts of things. And so here's something that everybody can understand. God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, to every seed his own body. All flesh is not the same. But there's one kind of flesh of man, another flesh of beasts, another fishes, and another of birds. It's common sense. Everybody understands that there are also celestial bodies, that is, heavenly bodies, it says in the Greek, and bodies terrestrial or earthly. But the glory of the celestial is one, the glory of the terrestrial is another. There's one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, another glory of the stars. For one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection from the dead, sown in corruption, raised in incorruption, sown in dishonor, raised in glory, sown in weakness, raised in power, sown a natural body, raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body. So it's written, first man, Adam, was made a living soul. The last Adam was made a quickening spirit. That's easy enough to understand. Yeah, it's just like Seeds, you plant it in the ground, comes up, gives you a new plant. But there's a lot more than this to the metaphor of sowing and reaping. As you know, Jesus once spoke to the Pharisees, and of course, the Pharisees placed a great deal of. Of faith in keeping a certain order of things as expressed through the law of Moses. Jesus cut them off. At one point he says, God is not the God of the dead, but the living. And he proceeded to explain to them how the law could not produce life. The law was wrapped up in death. Of course, Paul's epistles all express that idea. That's the idea of the seed. Now, remember, the seed is a story of dissolution and continuity. You take a little seed, and some people have likened it to a human body comprised of body, soul and spirit. A seed has a husk, it has a nutrient kernel, and it has a germ. And that might be said to correspond to body, soul and spirit in a crude sort of a way. You put that seed in the ground and it dissolves. The husk flakes off the flesh of the kernel, begins to be transformed biochemically into nutrient for the germ, which then forms a new plant. And so the seed dies. In a sense, that is, the unity of the seed is broken down in order to produce a new seed. Now, all the time we're talking about this, you might have the image of a seed in your mind, but. But let's change the image. Let's go back to what's called the proteoangelium in Genesis chapter three. The prototype of the gospel is what this is. That's the Greek protoevangelium In English, the prototype of the gospel after that horrible time in the garden when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and was tempted to take the fruit, and so forth. And you know the rest of the story. After that, man was judged, and so was the serpent judged. Genesis 3:14. And the Lord said unto the serpent, because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, above every beast of the field, and upon thy belly shalt thou go, and the dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. Verse 15. Here's the prototype gospel. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. The next sentence talks about the continuation of the human race. Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children and thy Desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. Now, what are we talking about here? Talking about seed. Paul talks about seed in 1 Corinthians 15. He said, the resurrection is like planting a seed, and the seed sort of dies, and then it grows up a new plant. Well, here is seed, first mentioned in the Bible. I'll put enmity between thee, you serpent, and the woman, between thy seed and her seed. Well, this is interesting. It's the seed of the serpent versus the seed of the woman. You mean there's such a thing as the seed of the serpent? Well, of course there is. What is it? Ooh. We don't have enough time. But I can tell you this. It has been the plan of the serpent ever since this moment to despoil the seed of the woman. He's tried it in dozens, if not hundreds, if not thousands of different ways. To ruin, to corrupt, to destroy. The seed of the woman. What is the seed of the woman? Well, you all know what that is, right? It's a virgin birth. Christ was born of a woman, a woman who became pregnant out of an act of God. Her seed produced the Messiah in every sense. The theme of the Bible is that after Satan's fall, God sought to restore a broken universe by bringing the new man. He made Adam, he made Eve. They were earthly creatures. In fact, if you read about the creation of Adam, you see it in Genesis 2, verse 7. The Lord formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Man became a living soul. He became neshama. In the Hebrew, he became a. Not just nephesh, which is a Hebrew word for soul. He became neshama, which is the soul infused with spiritual life after God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. But the thing about Adam is that he is earthly. In fact, Adam is a creature of blood, of flesh and blood. And even his name, Adom, incorporates the Hebrew word dom, which means blood. He's a man of blood. Adom. He's a man of flesh and blood. A man of. Well, you might say that he's put together of the corrupt elements of this planet. Except in this case, he was not corrupt at all. Adam was created to have eternal life and would have had he followed God's plan for his life, but he did not, and the spirit was removed from him and he became a corruptible creature of flesh and blood. Flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom of God. The Bible says that over and over again, going back to the seed of the woman. What's the story of the seed of the woman. Well, Adam and Eve had children. When Eve became pregnant with her first child, she thought that she had obtained the man promised by the Lord. In fact, she thought that she had conceived the one who would come to undo all that she and her husband had done. She realized belatedly, and Adam realized belatedly, that by their act of disobedience, they had corrupted the world. And God had promised, well, it's going to get fixed up. In fact, Genesis 3:15 speaks about the mechanism of the repair. But they didn't understand this was going to take more than just about a day and a half. It was going to take hundreds, thousands of years. And they didn't understand that the seed of the woman was a prophecy about the Messiah. Now, Adam and Eve had children. Cain had children. Seth had children. The line of the Messiah was underway. And then in Genesis 6, it came to pass when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, the sons of God. B' Nai Elohim saw the daughters of men, that they were fair, that they were, in the Hebrew, that they were betov, which means appropriate in this case, adjective, adjectival form, they were appropriate or fitting. And they took wives. Took them wives of all which they chose. Now, this is a story which every ancient civilization records. All the old books, most of which were destroyed in the great fire of the Library of Alexandria. Some extant texts from this country, that country, they all have a mythological base that supernatural creatures descended upon the face of this earth and corrupted humanity. Book of Enoch, the oldest prophecy in the world, I think, talked about fallen angels who came. And I'm quoting enoch7.1. And all the others together with them took unto themselves wives. And each chose for himself 1. They began to go into them, defile themselves with them, and they taught them charms and enchantments, the cutting of roots, and they made them acquainted with plants, and the list goes on. The fallen angels taught men all kinds of horticultural, scientific, technological facts. Enoch says in verse two, and they became pregnant, and they bear giants. Well, you've all heard the story about the giants that were in the earth. Genesis 6:3. Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh. He is flesh, yet his days shall be 120 years. There were giants in the earth in those days. And you've all heard those giants described as the Nephilim, from the Hebrew Nephal, which means to fall the fallen ones. And also after that, when sons of God B' Nai Elohim came into the daughters of men, and they bare children to them. The same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. These were the titans of the ancient world. What was happening here? You can read about this, kind of dust it off and say, well, this is an interesting story. I'm just going to move on to another subject. Or you can see how it fits into all of scripture. If this happened, and the Bible says it happened, that fallen angels corrupted the seed of man, would that not destroy the plan of God to bring forth the seed of the woman, the Messiah, who is the one to restore all things. Wouldn't Satan want to stop that seed from developing? And if he could do that, he could thwart the plan of the Messiah which was to come thousands of years into the future. Of course he would. He would want to do that. And he tried to do it. He tried to corrupt the human genome, and he almost succeeded. Of course, God could not permit that to happen. These mighty men of old, these men of renown, are the men of myth and fable and sometimes of history. I don't have time to go into all of this today except to say that the human species was threatened with extinction because it had been corrupted with an alien genome. Verse 5. And God saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth, that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The evil ancient world recorded in all of the ancient history books. You can read history books from China and from India and from the islands of the sea. You can read all of the ancient histories and they all speak of this period in which a fallen race tried to corrupt the human genome. God saw that the imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth. It grieved him at his heart. And God said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast and creeping thing and fowls of the air. For it repenteth me that I have made them. Then you know the rest of the story. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. These are the generations of Noah, Noah's generation, because he followed the will of the Lord who had declared to him, separate yourself, go to a place, oh, and by the way, build this ship which is going to be needed to keep you alive during the great flood. And up to that time, there had been no great floods. There hadn't even been rain. The ground was watered by a mist. So it took A lot of faith to build a ship. Who ever heard of a ship? These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations. And Noah walked with God. The fact that he was perfect in his generations is the Bible's way of saying that his genome had not been corrupted. Noah and his wife and his children were genetically pure enough to continue the seed of the woman. The track of the seed of the woman goes all the way to the Virgin Mary, out of which would come the Messiah who would save the world. This seed had to be preserved. Now we go back to First Corinthians 15, where we're talking about the seed. Again. When you read Paul's illustration of the resurrection as a seed, stop and think about the implications of this. You know, Peter said in 2 Peter 2:4, for if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, delivered them to chains of darkness, and reserved unto judgment, God reserved those fallen angels who tried to corrupt the human genome. He reserved unto them a very special punishment which has not been meted out yet, by the way. 2nd Peter 2:11. Whereas angels which are greater in power and might bring not railing accusation against them, before the Lord, those fallen angels, there was a battle in heaven between good angels and those who fell. And you know, that battle goes on to this very day, just beyond our sight. There's a war being fought, and that war is for the restoration of a broken universe. We know who's going to win, but there's a war going on. Jude 6. The angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation. These are the ones described in Genesis 6 who took wives to themselves from among human women. They saw an opportunity to inject their genome into this physical universe, and their plan was to corrupt it and dominate it and cut out for themselves a new territory that they could rule in the name of their exalted leader, once called Lucifer, but now known by many other names. The old serpent, the dragon, the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, yet reserved in everlasting chains under darkness. Call it solitary confinement in the deepest part of hell, awaiting the judgment of the great day. That's the day of the Lord. Those angels are going to be hauled out and judged. And you and I, I believe in resurrected form at that time, will observe this. In fact, you've read the rhetorical question in the New Testament. Know ye not that we shall judge angels? We shall judge these angels that are now locked up, awaiting judgment. That's a sobering Thought. And indeed, one of the reasons we read Scripture is to get sobered up. It's good to get serious every now and then. And a sure way to do it is just to check out Scripture. Because I want you to know if you see yourself as being written into Scripture as one of those chosen by the Lord to represent his name, that's a sobering thought. A sobering thought. So Paul says resurrection is like a seed. Well, the seed has to be pure in order to bring forth the fruit that God wants brought forth. Did you notice the little throwaway line back in Genesis chapter six? I just kind of glossed over it at the time. Genesis 6:4 says there were giants in the earth in those days. Ibrim, Titans in the Greek. Mythological creatures. We call them mythological. I think they were actual creatures lost in history. There's enough extant literature that we know they were real. There were giants in the earth in those days and also after that, when the sons of God came into the daughters of men. Do you know, those giants, those corrupt people who resulted from the intrusion into the human race by angelic beings certainly existed before the Flood. But the Bible says also after that they existed. And you know very, very well, if you've read your Bible, when they existed and where, historically speaking, they descended to the earth around Mount Herm. And if you go to the Bekah Valley and Mount Hermon today, you will find the origins of BAAL worship. Between Mount Hermon and Babylon, along the Fertile Crescent lies the original territory of BAAL worship. And there are a number of extant historical books, apocryphal literature that speaks of the descent of the fallen angels. At Mount Hermon. They came down and they corrupted man again, even into the days of King David. For example, David fought a giant. He was the champion of the Philistines. And Goliath of Gath was one of these creatures. The Bible refers to them by various names, one of which is Rephaim. The Rephaim are monstrosities. They are mutants. They will never see resurrection. According to Isaiah 26, they are dead and they shall not rise. They are abominations. And there are fallen angels tampering with the human genome to this day. As Jesus said, as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the coming of the Son of Man. In other words, this whole thing is to be repeated. There are a number of lettered men, PhDs from Harvard, from Temple University, who have written books on the subject of current tampering with the human genome or very, very Serious business. That's scary. That's what happened back in the days of Noah. Genetic manipulation. Genetic manipulation, or transgenics is being applied today. Wheat, soybeans, corn are all being genetically manipulated and patented so that a seed producer now transmutes a particular seed. He patents the seed and you have to buy it from him. And of course, the seed is engendered with many superior qualities. Except who wants to eat it? You know, I want to eat the kind of seed that God created when he created corn. He knew what he was doing. And I'm not sure the scientists do. If they put the genetics of a, for example, of a trout into a peach so that the peach will resist freezing, which they do. Do I want to eat that peach? I'm not sure. Or how about the creation of a half human, half pig, or a half human, half horse, or a dog with human organs, or a dog with a human head for that matter. The scientists have a name for that. It's called xenografting. You know what I call it? I call it a vision of hell. I do. Xenografting. Why? Where have we heard of xenografting before? Have you ever read about the ancient centaur that had the body of a horse and the torso and head and shoulders of a man? How about all those Egyptian gods that had the bodies of men and the heads of birds or jackals or whatever? How about all those half human, half animal creations that you used to see in museum carving? How about the chimaera, the mythical animal with the body of a lion, the head of a goat, and the tail of the dragon, Chimera? You know, this is not Mythology. This is 21st century show and tell. And it's scary. But Jesus predicted that all of this was going to happen again, just as it did in the days of Noah. And we're studying the resurrection. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:36, Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not made alive except it die. Now, in order to be resurrected, you have to plant good seed. In order to have good seed, you have to have the genome that God intended. The Bible's clear. The mutants called Rephaim in the Old Testament cannot be resurrected. They are not eligible for resurrection. The giants, the Anakim, the Zamzumim, the Gathites, died. But they will never see resurrection. Why? Because their seed is corrupted. Verse 42. Now 1 Corinthians 15:42. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it's raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor. Dishonor, huh? I wonder what that. If you read the text of the Greek, I wonder what that means. Dishonor. Sown in dishonor. That's fascinating. Think about that. Ugly. Think about ugly for a minute. Because that's what that Greek word means. It's sown in dishonor. It's ugly. Nobody likes ugly. I don't like ugly. Nobody likes ugly. Ugly is ugly. And you know, this corrupt civilization of ours is ugly. But those who are resurrected out of it are going to become beautiful. It's sown in ugliness. Verse 40. It's raised in glory. There's a whole industry that is generated in the world today to sell beauty. Know what I mean? You gotta sell beauty. I mean, everything from lipstick to mascara to face powder to special kinds of clothing or special things to sit in. Beautiful furniture, beautiful cars. You know, if you sit in the right kind of a car and put the right kind of a hat on, you're really beautiful. If I'm in a red Ferrari with a red snap brim cap and so forth, I am a beautiful person, am I not? Well, no. I'm ugly because I have yet to be resurrected. You can agree with me if you want to. I'm ugly, but I'm going to be beautiful. That's what the scripture says. Really. But there's this delusion that what you see right now is beautiful. It's not. It's just potentially beautiful because we have this seed that can grow up and form a new body. And that's what Paul's talking about. Sown in dishonor, raised in glory. Sown in weakness. Oh, yeah. If you don't believe we're weak, just hang around a few years. Every year older you get, you'll discover that you're just a tad weaker than you were the year before. And I speak from experience. I don't have the vitality that I had 40 years ago. That's this corrupt flesh. And you know, seed is just like that. You can harvest seed and when you do, and there are people who have farms for nothing but the purpose of harvesting seed. I used to know a guy that had a seed farm up in Kansas. And he would grow seed crops of various kinds. He had special combines with real fine combs and separators and he'd collect seed and then he had to take the seed and to process it and to store it in a particular way so that it would not get too hot, not too cold, not too wet, not too dry. In order that it would be good seed. And yet, if you kept that seed for very long, you kept it safe for a year, two years, three years, four years, five. Every year you keep the seed, it becomes just a little less viable and a little less likely to germinate than the year before. And finally, if you keep seed long enough, it's just the bodies that we have are sort of like that seed. We've got enough to keep us going for three score and 10. But one of these days we're going to be planted. And if we are viable, meaning if we have received the spirit of the Lord, we're going to sprout up into newness of life. We are. But the whole story of humanity is the planting of the correct kind of seed and the harvesting. You notice what Jesus said even in his first parables when he was talking to the Jews. He came and he said, I want to tell you a story about planting and harvesting. What did he do? He talked about seed. He talked about some seed falling in one place and sprouting up and dying and some seeds falling in another place and sprouting up and living and producing fruit. He talked about somebody who snatched up all the seed that was strewn so that it could not even grow at all. Of course, that was the figure of Satan. But there is so much of the picture of the seed in the life of man and in the story of resurrection that you really have to incorporate that into your thinking. The seed, it's sown a natural body and it's raised a spiritual body. The word natural there is the Greek word psuchikos, which means soulish. And indeed everybody lives. You can live without Christ, right? A lot of people say you don't need Christ. There's a growing number of atheists these days raising up their voices and saying, there's no God and I don't need the Bible and Jesus boy. I'm doing just fine, thank you very much. I've made my millions and I've got my 45th floor penthouse and I'm doing very well, thank you. And this man has the appearance of life and he does. He has a natural body, a soulish body. But that soulish body is a seed that ain't going to germinate. It's a seed, but it's not going to germinate. Nothing sadder than a poor seed that just shrivels up and dies without making a plant. You know what I'm saying? That's the story of man sown a natural body. Psychicos. It's Raised a spiritual body. Why is it raised a spiritual body? Because as Paul explains elsewhere, because it is empowered through Christ and his Holy Spirit. The mechanism of germination. There is no germination without a viable germ in the seed. And the only way the germ becomes viable is if it's reconnected with God through Christ. There's a natural body, says Paul, a psychic, psychicos body. And there is a spiritual body. Now everybody who has received Christ has a spiritual body. Right now mine may not look like a spiritual body, thank you very much, but it is, it is a spiritual body. How can you tell? Can you tell by the glow over my head? It's kind of a pale yellow glow. Can you all see it? No, you can't. But it's there. It is the spirit of Christ, which makes me viable seed. How can you tell viable seed? You're a farmer, you buy a whole sack of seed and you open the sack and and you see like 100,000 seeds in this 50 pound bag. Well, can you look at that and tell which one's going to germinate? No, you cannot. You can't look at anybody in this room and tell which one's going to germinate. I have an idea that all of the seeds in this room are going to germinate because we're safe in Christ and we have not been corrupted. We have a complete genome that goes all the way back to Adam through the godly line of Seth. All of us do. Noah, Ham, Shem, Japheth. There was a line of seed that was not corrupted, even though Satan tries time and again to corrupt it. Verse 45. So it's written, the first man Adam was made a living soul. Remember he was made a neshama, not a nephesh. A nephesh is a soul that appears to be alive, but it's not going to see resurrection. Nephesh. A fish has a nephesh. You know, a fish is a nephesh, a bird, but there's no bird or fish. It's neshama that has the spirit of God dwelling in it. Adam did and he lost it, but it's regained. Through faith in God and the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, we become through that process, viable seed. So it's written, the first man Adam was made a living soul. The last Adam was made a quickening or a life giving spirit. By the way, quickening or life giving in Greek is a wonderful word. It's the Greek word zaopoeio zapoeo. It's a Nice sounding word, too. Zao. Poeo. And zao means life. It's spelled Z O. O. Go down to the zoo to see life. You know, zoo, Poe O. Well, you know the word poeo, don't you? Have you ever read a poem? That's where we get our word. Poem. A poem is a structured piece of literature that's put together in such a way as to produce an effect. Well, that's what a zoo poeo is a quickening spirit. It is life structured in such a way as to produce viability. Howbeit that was not first, which was spiritual, that which was first, of course, was Adam, but that which is natural and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man of the earth is of the earth, earthy. The second man is the Lord from heaven. Adam was made of earth. Second man is the Lord from heaven, who coincidentally was also made of earth. Jesus was born into human flesh, but he did something to human flesh that had been lost at the time of Adam. He created viability. He brought viability to human flesh, becoming the first of the new creation, the new man. First man is of the earth, earthy. The second man is the Lord from heaven, as is the earthy. Such are they also that are earthy, as is the heavenly. Such are they also that are heavenly. As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Reading Back to verse 43, remember where it says he's sown in dishonor, raised in glory. And the idea of dishonor means ugly. It does. It means ugly. We're kind of ugly right now, and we're going to be beautiful. You ever read a description of the risen Christ? People struggle to try to describe him. He's got to be the most beautiful thing you've ever laid eyes on. We think of ourselves as beautiful now. We try everything. We can try to be beautiful. No, we're going to be heavenly. We're going to be beautiful. And I spend time on that because the idea of being beautiful is very appealing. It really is. I don't know whether I want to be called beautiful, handsome. Okay. My wife is going to be. I keep telling her that, you know, I just cannot wait to see her in her resurrected form. I just, you know, it's going to be a wow. It's going to be amazing. But. And she can't wait to see me in my resurrected form for sure, because I'm going to be beautiful and I'm probably going to have more beautiful characteristics than I did then, than I did in the old days. I'll have a better personality. Probably I'll be easier to live with. Probably. I hope Paul is trying really hard here to tell it like it is. Folks know who you are and who you're going to be. That's part of the Christian message. As we have borne the image of the earthly, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Brings me to the next point. Flesh and blood can't inherit the kingdom of God. In the law, the blood is very important. The blood was the element of sacrifice. The blood was that which was applied to the mercy seat for atonement. In Leviticus 17:11, it says, for the life of the flesh is in the blood. I've given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls. For it is the blood that maketh atonement for the soul. The Nephesh needs the blood. Every year, the high priest went in and sprinkled blood on the mercy seat to make atonement for a soul which was not viable. And it had to be annually renewed on the day of atonement, once for all time, Jesus shed his blood for us. And you notice the result is 1 Corinthians 15:50. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Once that blood of Jesus was shed, that ended blood sacrifice for all time. And the blood as an instrument of sacrifice was just gone. And in fact, when Jesus came back and visited his disciples, Luke 24, Jesus appeared in the room with them. He said, sholem alayichem. You know, shalom alaikum, which is the Jewish way of saying, hi, y'. All. And they were terrified. They were afraid. And they thought they'd seen a ghost. Which means that the disciples believed in ghosts, but they thought they'd seen a ghost. Well, Jesus knew, as only Jesus would know their thoughts. Uh oh. They think they're seeing a ghost. Wow. What can I do to convince them I'm not a ghost? And he said unto them, why are you troubled? Why do these thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it's I myself. Touch me, handle me and see. For a spirit hath not flesh and bones as you see me have. That's what Jesus said. He didn't say flesh and blood. He said, flesh and bones. The blood gone. Jesus is no longer a creature of flesh and blood. Jesus is a creature, I think, of a new kind of flesh that Paul calls a heavenly flesh. And it's Filled with light. As John said, God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. Can you imagine having a body empowered by absolute light? By the way, it's not the kind of light that you're used to seeing with electric lights. It is the light of God. It is called or in the Hebrew, and it is the primeval light of God. And it is the agent of life that we will have when we grow up in new bodies just like his. So having thus spoken, he went around the group. He showed them his hands and his feet. And the next sentence in the Bible says, and while they yet not believed for joy and wondered and said unto them, have you any food? Get this picture. He's circling the group and he said, here, look, check. You know, touch me. You see, it's me, myself in a body of flesh and bones. As he did this, the Bible says they didn't believe even though they touched him. So he goes to phase two, and he says, have you got any food? And they gave him a piece of broiled fish and honeycomb, and he took it and he began to eat in front of them. Now they watched him very closely. Have you ever seen somebody eat? Why, I can just see this. Resurrected Jesus with a crumb of fish, maybe a little honey on his lips from the honeycomb, chewing the fish. Whoa, that's convincing. And I'll bet he made a big deal of eating it. Look, it's me. This is great fish. I love it. Who cooked this? This is wonderful. This tastes great. And finally, they started to believe. This is amazing. This is the story that we're supposed to infuse ourselves with, because this is our hope, our blessed hope, the resurrection. Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. What is this mystery? There are 22 mysteries mentioned in the New Testament. 22 mysteries. I find that quite fascinating. This one is very specifically the mystery of the transforming power of the Spirit of God that takes non viable seed and turns it into viable seed. Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep. We shall all be changed. The moment the twinkling of an eye at the last trump for the trumpet shall sound, the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption. Corruptible, by the way, means decaying, just like the universe is decaying everywhere you look in this universe, physicists refer to the second law of thermodynamics. Entropy. Everything is running down, it's rotting, it's decaying. Even astronomers looking into the distant epochs of the future say that one day the universe will be a constant temperature, flat, run down and cold when. When all the energy is exhausted. That's not what the Bible says. It says he's going to restore the universe and we're going to be the agents of change working with him. This corruptible must put on incorruption. This mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, this mortal shall have put on immortality. Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. He's quoting Isaiah there. O death, where's thy sting? O grave, where's thy victory? The sting of death is sin. The strength of the sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. Forasmuch as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. And that's the bottom line. You're going to be resurrected, raised up, and everything you do now will pay off more than a hundredfold, I guarantee you in the coming kingdom. One last statement that we really need to look at there. And that is the law. Paul never misses an opportunity to say that the law is dead. It's gone. We're not operating under law anymore. And look what he says about the law. It's really fascinating that the law is sin. He says the sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the law. Have you ever said there ought to be a law? Why there ought to be a law? You know so and so does such and such a thing. Why there ought to be a law. There are not enough laws on the state books. Now we need one more. Keep these stinkers from doing whatever they're doing right. Well, you know what that means. The more law you write, the more you strengthen sin. Sin thrives on law like fire thrives on wood. And Paul says it so clearly here. The sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. What he's saying now is that we can walk in the Spirit. And miraculously, when you walk in the spirit, not only do you become a viable seed, but you strengthen the existing order. You don't need law. All you need is the foundational grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit. And you'll be directed, it says way back in Proverbs 3, 5, 6. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths. Law is not needed in that process whatsoever. And in fact your ultimate pathway will be right up through the heavens into a glorified body. Thank God that you are viable seed.