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“The Moral Implication of the Resurrection of our Lord”

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The Moral Implication of the Resurrection of our Lord

Pastor and author A.W. Tozer

April 10, 1955

I cannot let this day close without pointing to the moral implications of the resurrection of our Lord. And that would be the topic I would assign myself tonight, “The Moral Implications of the Resurrection of our Lord. And we’ll continue to think about this 28th chapter of the book of Matthew. In the end of the Sabbath, that is, not at night, but in the morning, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and that other Mary, to see the sepulcher. I suppose they hadn’t been asleep all the night. And as soon as there was any hope of light, they appeared. And behold, there was a great earthquake. For the angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone from the door and sat upon it.

It would be very easy for a vivid Christian imagination here, to introduce a lot of things that are not in the text. Why did the angel from heaven sat upon the roll back stone? I think I know. If God had said to me, now you go down. My Son is in the grave. And I want you to go down and roll back that stone. He is coming out to be alive forevermore. He will never die again, but He’ll stay in life forever, a mortal life forever. Go down and confound hell and glorify the Father. And I think I know where I would have set when the stone was rolled back. I think I’d have sat where the angel did. Now that might not be the reason the angels sat there, but it looks all right to me.

Then verse three, the countenance of this angel was like lightning and his raiment white as snow. And for fear of him, the keepers did shake and became as dead men. And the angel answered, that is, answered the unspoken inquiry of the women and said, fear not ye. For I know whom ye seek. It is Jesus which was crucified. But He is not here. For He is risen as He said. And if you are doubtful about it, come and see the place where the Lord once lay, but lies no more.

Now, there are two thoughts here, the magnificence of this angel that rolled the stone away, this messenger from God and the warm love of these two Marys that came to the sepulcher to mourn their Lord. And then, the annunciation, He is not here. He is risen. Come and see the place where the Lord lay. And then in verse eight it says about these disciples, that they departed quickly from the sepulcher with fear and great joy and did run to bring His disciples word.

The fear that was here was not the fear that they had once felt. Not the fear that keeps men in bondage all their lifetime, that is, fear of death. The fear that they felt was another kind of fear. It was a fear that was replete with joy. That is, it was reverence. It was the sense of being suddenly found in the presence of the supernatural and the heavenly, and to know that the Lord had risen and was out of the grave. This brought a sense of the heavenly-ness upon them, a sense of another world, the sense of mystery and life and well-being and the presence of God.

And so, there was the fear of it there, and it was a fear mixed with joy. And they departed from the sepulcher. Someone said, I don’t recall whom I was talking lately, that religion lies in the prepositions. And here we have religion lying in another preposition. They departed quickly from the sepulcher. “From” is a preposition. It is a word of direction. They had come to the sepulcher. That was their religion that they had before they knew Jesus had risen from the dead. The direction was toward the sepulcher. They came to the sepulcher. There you have a preposition. The direction is toward the sepulcher.

And as soon as they heard the joyful news that He had risen from the dead as He said, and that you could actually see the place where He lay. Then the Scripture said, they departed from the sepulcher. They changed their preposition from to, to from. The direction was now not toward the grave, but away from the grave. Not toward the end, but the end was past and now it was toward endlessness. And they departed quickly from the sepulcher and did run to bring the disciples word.

And then verse sixteen, the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. What a wonderful thing for a man to do. He appointed to meet these disciples before his death, apparently, and said, I will meet you. I’m going to die tomorrow, and in three days, I will meet you; make an appointment for three days after He was to die. That’s what He did alright. And so they came and they found Him there. Verse eighteen, Jesus came. They saw Him and they worshipped Him. But being like you and me, there were some that were wondering about it all. It says, doubted, here.

In verse eighteen, Jesus came and spake unto them and said, all power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth, all power. He had died in weakness. And they had seen Him limp and cold and dead on the cross. They’d seen Him taken down and removed and placed in a grave. Now, they heard Him say, all power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth. That might have been hard to believe except for one thing. He was there to prove that His words were real. If He had said that and not come through, and they had been looking down on His dead face and they had remembered that he said, all power is given unto me, they might have shrugged and looked at each other and shaking their heads and walked sadly away. For it would have been speaking, and not making good on your speech.

But there He was, keeping an appointment three days after death. There He was, present, in His own warm, living, pulsating, immortal person. And He said, all power is given unto me, in heaven and in earth. Now, how could they deny it? If a man just makes talk, you have a right to doubt him. But if a man stands before you risen from the dead, then you have a right to listen to him.

And when Jesus said, all power is given unto Me, He was there out of the grave, alive, to give weight and meaning, finality to what He was saying. And the church has believed that, that all power belongs to Jesus Christ our Lord. He doesn’t exercise it all yet, but He has it all. He can command the armies of the world any moment. He can change the course of nations with a wave of His hand or word of His mouth. He can raise the dead, for they shall hear His voice and come forth from their lowly graves. All power is his, all authority, the authority of a raised and living Savior, the authority of a dying Lamb, the authority of a King, the authority of a High Priest forever, the authority of the second person of the Trinity, it’s all his authority and it’s all His power.

So, He said, all power is given unto me in heaven and earth. That is why I for one, cannot as the old writers would say, I cannot away with, it means I can’t tolerate this pitying kind of religion. It’s pitying the Lord Jesus Christ all the time. Come weep with me awhile. Come, weep with me awhile. Let us kneel down by the cross and let us weep a while. Come weep awhile as though the Lord were a victim, a martyr, a victim of his own zeal, a poor pitiable man with good intention, but that found the world was too big for Him and life too much for Him. So, He sank down in the helplessness of death. And now, when we weep for a while beside His tomb and grieve awhile beside His cross and walk around in black.

No, no my brethren, He says, all power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth. Here is the mighty Jesus, the mighty Christ, the mighty Lord. At Christmas time I said, the power doth not lie in the manger. And now I say to you that power does not lie at the cross. Power lies in the glory. The man who died on the cross died in weakness. The Bible says so. But He rose in power. And if we forget the resurrection and the glory and the fact that He is seated at the right hand of God, we lose all the meaning of Christianity.

Power does not lie with a babe in a manger. Power does not lie with a man helpless on a cross. Power lies with a man who died on that cross and went into a grave and came out the third day and rose to the right hand of power. There is where power lies. And the Savior that we serve is not a Savior to be pitied. And our business is not to mourn and weep awhile beside a grave. Our business is to thank God with tearful reverence that He ever went into that grave. To thank God, with joy, that He ever went to that cross. To understand what that cross meant and means and understand what that burial means, and then understand what the resurrection means that placed a glorious crown upon all His sufferings.

So, at His Father’s right hand, He sits in absolute majesty and kingly powers, sovereign over all the world. But you say, Mr. Tozer, isn’t that just big talk? If He is sovereign over all the world, what about Russia? What about juvenile delinquency? What about atom bombs and hydrogen bombs? If He is Sovereign over all the world, why is the West at the throat of the East? And why is there an armament race? Because, He has a prophetic plan that He’s working by.

And His plan calls for the nations of the earth to play themselves like checkers over the face of the world as over a checkerboard. And it calls for the return of Israel to Palestine. And it calls for the king of the north, to beat himself out. And it calls for the West to evangelize the world. And He’s waiting, waiting, though He has all the power, He’s waiting to exercise it. He exercises it in a limited way now through His church and would exercise it with unlimited power if His church was ready to believe that He would and could do it. All power is given unto Me in heaven and earth.

Now what are we to do? What are the moral implications of it? The answer is, go ye therefore. Therefore, is the word that means, as a result of what I just said, that all power is given unto Me in heaven and earth. Go ye and disciple all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son of the Holy Ghost.

Now, my friends, I want you to see here that Easter did not come and end. It’s not something to be celebrated each year as a something in itself, that began and ended in itself. It was but a beginning of some vaster and grander thing. I am out of the grave. I’m alive forevermore. All power is given unto me. Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And then the rest of it says, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.

You know how tenderly we take the knife of bad teaching and separate that little passage from the rest, as you might take a rine off an orange. We peel it off and put it on our mottos and on our calendars and in the back of our book or draw a line through it, lo, I am with you always even unto the end of the world, but He didn’t say that. Don’t make him say something He didn’t say. Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. He didn’t say that. He said, and lo, I am with you alway. That conjunction is not there by accident. He said go ye therefore and lo, I am with you always.

There’s the point. Easter did not come to give you and me a chance to smell sweet flowers. And you can’t imagine what a circle of fragrance there is around those lilies, beautiful, and I’m a flower man. I don’t know one from the other, but I love them. I do know that’s a lily. And I love all that goes with it. I’d whisper to you ladies that I even like the color that comes with Easter in the clothing. I don’t mind it at all. I’m not such an old fuddy duddy and just frown upon color. I like color. God made color. He made all in color there is. The devil never invented a color yet. He doesn’t know how. He can’t do it. He can’t make anything pretty. God makes the pretty things, and the devil makes the ugly things.

But Easter isn’t a time for us to smell flowers only, not a time for us to buy the new clothing only. And certainly, God knows it’s not a time to be the proudest fellow in the Easter parade. It’s a time for us seriously to consider the moral implications of the resurrection. If this is all true, if this is not more Santa Claus stuff. This isn’t simply more sentimentality and poetry. If this is history. If this is real. If this happened, and this church is founded upon the belief that it happened. And I stand tonight upon the faith that it happened. This is historically true.

Then if it is true, was does it mean to me? Does it have any bite in it? Does it get hold of me? Does it mean anything to me? Am I to listen to a cantata and sing, up from the grave He arose, smell the flowers and go home and forget it? No, it has a moral application. It lays hold upon us with all the authority of sovereign obligation, and says, go, you. You go. Everybody knows the grammatical construction here. You is the subject of that sentence. Go is the verb go. You, you go and teach all nations. Or as the margin has it, make disciples among all nations, or make Christians in all the nations.

So, the moral obligation of the resurrection of Christ is the missionary obligation. It is the obligation to carry the message and to tell the story and to be a financial and personal and praying part of this great commission. There are those who so rightly divide the Word of Truth wrongly, that they put this great commission in what they call the tribulation days and say it doesn’t belong to the church of Christ.

The devil is slicker than the communists. Communists are dumb. Every time they try to pull a fast one. They’re so dumb that it’s amazing how they can get along at all. If they didn’t have so much brass, they couldn’t. They cover their ignorance and stupidity with brass. But the devil isn’t so stupid. And he well knows that if he can succeed in getting us to be satisfied with a celebration, and say, oh, He’s risen from the dead. Let everybody say amen.

I even heard a man last night on the radio as I was sampling the station to see if there was anything worth listening to, comparing Jesus Christ to a baseball player who died when he was 38, Lou Gehrig. He said, Lou Gehrig, he was 38 years old when he got leukemia and died. He said he was a wonderful fellow, and incidentally, he was, a wonderful young man, a prince among young men from all I can learn about him. But he died when he was 38, and said, the unctuous voiced announcer, he died at 38, and come to think of it, Jesus died about that time. But look what Lou Gehrig accomplished, and look what Jesus accomplished.

And so, if we can get all soft voice and dewy-eyed and talk about Jesus and Lou Gehrig, the devil will be a happy boy. He’ll say, that’s what I want them to do. I want them to talk about Easter. I want them to have cartoons about Jesus rising from the dead. I want them to put on cantatas and sing great anthems and preach sermons about Him. But I always want them to think about Him as being just like any other big hero, a Lincoln, a Lou Gehrig, I don’t ever want them to remember for a minute that He is now seated in the place of power, and I’m a poor frightened fugitive. The devil never wants that, He wants us to think about Easter and buttercups and the bluebirds coming back.

But he doesn’t want us to remember that his Lord is at the right hand of God now and can put him in hell when the time comes. He can send him there and chain him and hurl him down the moment He wants to do it in the prophetic plan. He doesn’t want anybody to remember that. He knows he can keep the Christians mourning a while. Oh, mourn with me a while and weep with me beside the tree. He knows he’s got us. And he knows that he’s got a bunch of sentimental blubberers.

But if we can see that He is risen, and that He’s no longer dead, no longer mortal. Not even mortal, to say nothing of being dead. He can’t die anymore. Death has no more dominion. And that He has all the authority in heaven, earth and hell, and holds the keys thereof. Then we get our chest back and begin to look and think and feel differently about things. And it’ll be no more a celebration once a year, and no more mournful thinking about a pitiful Jesus that went out to die. But we’ll understand what the cross was for.

Next Saturday on the radio, I’m going to preach on, what did the cross mean? And as soon as we get a hold of that and we know the meaning of the cross and the meaning of the resurrection, then power begins to move in, and we take the offensive and become the aggressors. And our witness and our testimony become positive and final, and we’re to spread this all over the earth. I wouldn’t be pastor five minutes of a church that wouldn’t be a missionary church and wouldn’t have missionary interests, missionaries clinging around and missionaries going out sometimes and missionaries coming back, because that’s the obligation.

That’s the moral obligation of our Lord’s resurrection. It is that we surrender to His Lordship. All power is given unto me. It is that we obey His command, go ye therefore and teach all nations. It is that we believe His promise, lo, I’m with you alway even unto the end of the world. But let’s not separate them. Let’s not refuse to have anything to do with the going or the sending. Let’s not forget the nations and then say, lo I’m with you. He didn’t say it. He said, you do what I told you to do and lo I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

Well, next week we begin our 33rd missionary convention. Next Sunday night I’m going back to John again. I’m still in John. I’m going to preach a missionary sermon out of John following Brother Notson’s missionary message. And then I’m going to pray, and I know you will and do everything possible to see whether we can’t push up our missionary offering another $10,000 this year from whatever it’s been before.

Then, in addition to that, we have a crop of teenage young people now coming up in our church. Now, what’s it going to be for them? Where are they going? Are they going to mature, marry, settle down, get old, quick thinking, get into a groove and wear it deeper and deeper as the years go by as so many, many have done, or are they going to hear the voice of God speak to them? Are they going to listen to this voice spoken, O earth, hear the word of the Lord, says the Holy Ghost. And here it is. I am no longer in the grave. I am out and here I am, He said. And My power is all power there is. It’s mine. Heaven listens. Earth listens. Hell listens. It’s all mine. Now because it’s all mine, I can protect you. I can support you. I can go ahead of you. I can give you effectiveness and meaning and efficiency.

You therefore go and make disciples out of all the nations of the world, all the nations, and I will be with you. I will be with you. The American soldier goes out. He has the goodwill and the good wishes and the prayers and the love of his people behind him. But he may be caught somewhere in a foxhole all alone. And all 160 million Americans and all the unthinkable power of our American military, can’t help him at all. But there was never a Christian caught in a foxhole alone. Never. Paul said, my friends all left me, but nevertheless, the Lord stood with me. Hear that? He remembered that the Lord stood with him. Nobody, nobody’s ever been deserted by the Lord yet.

Twelve to fourteen years ago, a great big handsome fellow used to play with my boys. Oh, they were big enough now, 17-18; but they still played and fooled around there. They used to come over and I’d see him, a round-faced, handsome big fellow full of smiles; a very close friend to one of my boys. He became a flyer over Germany. He went out one night, and I think over the English Channel if I remember. Some of the mates, some of those who were with him in the squadron flying, saw his plane take fire and start to spiral downward and plunge. And I don’t know if they have ever found the body yet after all these years. Nobody could help him then. 160 million Americans back here, untold power, flew the air and floated on the sea and marched on the land, Marines, Air Corps, WACS, WAVES, Army, military power untold, but a handsome, young fellow, too late, spiraled down into the sea with the rest of his crew. And they have never been heard of since.

But no soldier ever went out yet for the Lord Jesus, ever went anywhere yet by himself. Never could be said yet of a man, a missionary, or a messenger of the truth. Here he is, all alone. Jesus Christ has all the power there is, but he’s way yonder and the man is alone. Poor fellow, it’s too bad, Jesus couldn’t get some of that power to him, too bad.

No, no, nobody ever said that that had sense in his head. For you said, lo, I am with you always even to the end of the world. And there never was a martyr yet on a mission field of the world, never a missionary that laid down his life in a cannibal jungle. Never a missionary that perished shooting the rapids or going over the falls, never a one, but the Lord Jesus Christ didn’t have him by the hand and lead him triumphantly victoriously through. Lo, I am with you always. But that itself is based upon the obligation, understood and accepted. Go ye therefore and teach all nations.

I hope that this church and all of us here and myself and these pastors and all of you friends, I hope that we’ll all see that Easter is not a time for celebration only. It’s a time for obligation. It is a time for moral implications. It’s a time to understand that if He rose, then we’ve got to do something. If He rose, then we can’t sit. If He rose, then we can’t settle back down in religious apathy. If He rose, and all power is His, then there’s something for you and me to do!

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“An Easter Message”

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Three Great Days: An Easter Message

Pastor and author A.W. Tozer

April 6, 1958

I announced last Sunday that I would break into my series of expositions of the book of Titus and would bring something more nearly related to the Easter day. And today I want to read a bit of Scripture and let it be part of the sermon, by far and away the best part, where a man with anointed vision looked, and behold, a door was opened in heaven. And the first voice he heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me which said, come up hither and I will show thee things which it must be hereafter. And then immediately I was in the Spirit, the whole the throne was set in heaven. And One sat on the throne. And He that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone. And there was a rainbow round about the throne in sight like unto an emerald. Round about the throne were four and twenty seats. And upon the seats, I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment. And they had on their head, crowns of gold. And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal. In the midst of the throne, round about the throne, there were four beasts full of eyes, before and behind. And the first beast was like a lion, second beast like a calf, the third beast had the face as a man and the fourth was like a flag eagle. And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.  When God speaks of himself, he says, I am. When his creatures speak of him, they say he was and is, and is to come. And when those beasts give glory and honour and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever, The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

Now there’s a picture of heaven, and God the Father and the throne and the strange beasts, living creatures, redeemed elders. Then I saw in the right hand of Him that sat on the throne, a book. Written within and on the back side, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, who is worthy to open the book and to loose the seals there of? They must have searched and searched a long time because no man in heaven or in earth, neither under the earth was able to open the book, neither to look thereon. And I wept much because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereon. One of the elders saith unto me, weep not. Behold the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book and to loose the seven seals there of.

And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth. And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne. And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints. And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.  The Lamb Exalted and I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever. And the four beasts said, Amen. And the four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped him that liveth for ever and ever.

And no man could preach a sermon on that text without suffering a brain hemorrhage. It is too vast, too emotional, too noble, too elevated, too full, too musical, too poetic, too wonderful to do anything, but read, so that’s all I’m going to do with it. Just read it before you. For it is the story of the Lamb who died a Lamb and rose a Lion. But I have three little words to speak to you today about three great days: the day He came which we call Christmas; the day He died which we call Good Friday; and the day He rose which we call Easter. If we had never invented the names, Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, which are words borrowed and put together. If we had never invented names, still, those three great days stand; the greatest days in the history of the world.

And God said, let there be light and there was light. And God separated the light from the darkness. And the darkness He called night and the light He called day and the evening and the morning, the first day. So reads the story of God’s creation. So, it was a great day.

It was a great day when the ark of God floated the high above the waters, cleared the hill where it had been built and floated high and all-around devastation and watery death. And Noah and the eighth person floated free and safe in the ark of God. It was a great day when Abraham heard the voice of Jehovah saying get thee up out of thy country to a land that I will show thee. And God began the redemption and restoration of the race. It’s a great day when Moses put blood on all the door posts but really it was night, and put blood on all the doorposts and lentils. And the million slaves who were the seed of that same Abraham rose and walked out on their feet, out over the sandy wastes and across where the river, or the Red Sea used to be, but was no more for the river part of the sea part didn’t let them through.

Those were days, great days, but nothing to be compared with the three that I’ve named. The day He came and the day He died and the day He arose. The day He came, there was joy. It was the joy of hope. It was the joy of sentiment. For God was now a Babe in a manger. And a bright-eyed mother looked upon Him, a little red-faced Fellow making funny little animal noises, feeling around for His mother’s breasts. And all the ages have surrounded this day with sentiment and beauty and flowers and music, and well they may have. How could we escape it? What else could you do? We, being human and being sons and daughters of the sun and the moon and the rolling heavens, time and anniversaries and years and day. You can’t escape them no matter how hard we try if we wanted to.

So, we have made Christmas a great day. It is a day of joy because it’s a day of hope. But that’s all it was. You can’t carry it too far. That’s all it was. It was a day of joy. But it was the day of the joy of anticipation, not the day of the joy of realization. For very few knew the Babe had been born. And those that didn’t know, didn’t know who He was for certain, maybe half a dozen, maybe two or three–no more. It was the joy of anticipation.

But I can think of how that joy might have been dashed like a beautiful vase and destroyed. I can think of a hundred ways. I can think when Herod said go out and kill all the babies under two years. Go out and kill them. I can understand how they might have caught that Babe, caught that mother and father unaware and plunged the sword through the innocent bosom of that little Baby along with all the others in that neighborhood of Bethlehem. That would have been the end of all that joy. That would have mocked the angels as they sang over the Judean hills. And that would have mocked the shining eyes of Mary, and would have made the very Word of God of none effect.

I can think how when Satan came to Him when He had grown to be a tall man, thirty years of age now, strong and vigorous and at the peak of His physical powers, when the devil came to Him and said, turn this stone into bread. Fall down and worship me. Leap off this pinnacle. For it is written, it is written He might have there, at least we can think it. We can imagine it. He might have there given Himself over, surrendered under pressure, and put a vial of poison where the oil of joy had been.

But He said, it’s written and Satan turned his back away and you remained holy as He’d been born. God had called Him, that holy thing, that holy thing. And He stayed that same Holy Thing through His development and boyhood and youth and now a strong grown man. He was still that Holy Thing and was as pure as the waters that flow from under the throne of God. It was the joy of anticipation and a hundred possibilities I say, except He were God, might have intervened there.

You’ve had many a joyful anticipation that blew up in your face and left you more grief stricken than if you had never expected the joy. The day He died was not a day of joy. It was a great day, but it was not a great day of joy. It was a day of dejection and despondency. It was the grief of uncertainty, just as they didn’t know who He was. And the simple little negro spiritual says so plaintively, and it must have been beautiful when it was first written before it was commercialized. But back there, the first simple-hearted black man who sang it maybe to his own homemade banjo somewhere. We didn’t know who He was, said the song. With Jesus, we didn’t know who you was. What beauty is there, we didn’t know who He was.

And when He died, we didn’t know what He’d done. They stood around Him and tradition has it, Mary fainted and was carried away, leaning heavily on the arm of John, into whose care Jesus had given her for the rest of her life. But they didn’t know what He’d done. He had told them, but their eyes were holden and their ears stopped. They didn’t know what He’d done. And it was a time of dejection and of the grief of uncertainty. He went out there and died, and they didn’t know what He was doing when He was dying.

Every one of them had seen people die. They knew everybody died. But when this man was dying, they didn’t know why. And all the joy of hope and anticipation that any of them had had back there 33 years before and were still alive, Mary was among them and there were some others. All that joy suddenly turned to bitterness. For He was dying now. He was dying now. And His disciples thought maybe there would be a dramatic rescue. They thought it out, a dramatic rescue. But there was no dramatic rescue. They said, the God who delivered the three Hebrew children from the fiery furnace, the God who delivered Daniel; that God will deliver Him as He delivered them. But there was no deliverance. And after six hours, He groaned and gave up the ghost, and died in the darkness and they all turned away.

But that day was just as important as that first day of joy. That day that they took down a dead Man, partly stiff already from rigor mortis and stained with blood, flies buzzing around Him. That day was as important in the mind of God as that day Mary held the baby in her heart, the tender, pink-skin, baby, sweet to touch. Now, the cold, gray body, unpleasant to touch. But one was as important as the other. For if there had not been the day that He died, the day that He came would have been a mockery to the human race. But if that had been the last day, those other two days would have been dreams and no more.

But the day that He arose set a crown upon the others. And just as the day He came was a day of the joy of hope and the day He died the day of the grief of uncertainty, the day He rose was the day of the joy of triumph. For now, it was finished. It’s finished. Nothing could be interposed now. When the boy Jesus played with His father’s tools and got in the way and helped a little as He was able, and sometimes didn’t help, but tried to help as a little growing boy. There were a lot of things that could have intervened, I say, possibly at least they were technically possible that could have intervened. But they didn’t, but at least we can think them. But now we can’t even think anything there.

When He rose from the dead, He rose absolutely triumphant. And when the old Latin writer, we sang it this morning, an English translation. When the old Latin writer said, He opened heaven and He closed hell. That’s correct for all that believe. For all that believe. There isn’t a crevice or crack anywhere in the walls of the hell where a saint can get in. And there isn’t a door in the walls of heaven that a saint can’t get in. By saint I don’t mean a saint on a pedestal. I mean any redeemed man. For the day He arose was the day of the joy of triumph. Somebody read here or a choir sang or something, I don’t know, but I caught this phrase this morning. He is not here. He is risen. And I jotted the word “not” down there so I’d remember to tell you “not.” If it had said, if the angel had left that one little word of three letters out, we would have been and be now of all men most miserable–following a dead man.

But that little word “not” there, only three letters. A tiny, monosyllabic word, not. You can say it, you can time it it is so brief and yet upon it hung the whole hope of all the world for all the time to come. He is not here. The angel had folded his wings and bowed his head and said, we’re all mistaken. He is here. Come in, look, He is here. If he’d been there, the bottom would have fallen out of redemption for all time to come. He is not here. And in one simple word, God Almighty set all the bells in the universe to ring. He is not here. He was there. He died. But He’s not dead. He’s alive again.

So, these are the three great days. The day He came was called Christmas, the joy of hope. And there we had the weak babe in the manger. And the day He died, there was the cross and we had death. And I regret that some cannot see beyond that.

We had a long-distance Easter call last night from our girl out in New York. She said that she and her boyfriend from the church here had been in a great cathedral in New York. And she said what do you suppose? They’ve covered all the statues of Jesus. They have draped them all. He’s dead. All draped. They had draped all the statues and pictures of Jesus. Death was in that cathedral.

And that’s all there is at the cross–death. That’s all there was in the manger, weakness and hope. And all there was at the cross was death and despair. But when He walked out of the grave, then there was triumph forever and ever and ever. I have no statues of Jesus, and I don’t even like pictures of Jesus, though I don’t condemn those who do. But I don’t even like pictures. But pictures of Jesus all ought to have gold frames and never be shrouded and never draped. For Jesus doesn’t die once a year, just as He doesn’t get born once a year. And He doesn’t rise once a year. There was one great day, the day He was born. A great day, the day that He died. And a great day, the day that He arose.

Now, there are just some other days I’ll mention and say no more. The day He finds you. That would be a great day, for you. But it never could have been it, except for these other great days. And the day you find Him. For remember, He finds you before you find Him. It’s got to be so. And the day He comes again and the day He’s crowned. And all His sheep and all His lambs and all His children and all those who make up the royal train, joggle with him to His coronation. Beautiful. We’re not a ritualistic church here. And the result is at Easter time we have very few more people to church than we do all the other, year around because we’re always talking about the Lord rising here and singing about it.

But I want to say to you this one word. I want to tell you what I told my friends up in Milwaukee last week, Friday night, no Friday afternoon. We had a good Friday meeting, six churches met and I preached to them. And there popped into my head an illustration as I was closing. I think God gave it to me. I had never thought of it before that I remember in my life. But it fit the situation, I’m afraid, for some people’s lives and possibly in yours.

I said, and I say now, look, there’s excitement down the street, cars pulling up quick, putting on the brakes. People getting out and dashing up steps. People hurrying away. Others hurrying up, what’s going on? What’s going on? There too, we learn a baby was born down there a day before yesterday. A new baby, Jr. A new baby, their first. Junior’s been born. There he is. They’ve named him after his Dad. I know now why all that excitement. Then the excitement levels off and tapers down and disappears, and the cooing and gurgling is over and they settle down to living with the baby. But they’ve got the baby every day, every night, every hour, all the time. Sleeping and waking, he’s still there. If it’s asleep, they can peek out of it. If it’s awake, they can pick it out. They still have it. A year goes around and they have a celebration. The table is set up now. So, they bake a little cake and put one candle. That’s his little first birthday, another celebration. Cards come and gifts, and neighbors drop in, another celebration. Second year, two candles appear, another celebration. And they celebrate every year that exciting time when the little new fellow arrived out of the anywhere and came into the here and became their boy.

But I said, have you ever thought of this? The age of six months or eight months or nine months, a sudden stroke of disease falls upon little Junior and he dies. And with broken hearts they lay the little quiet white alabaster statue in silk, white silk and put it away and buried with his ancestors down in the earth. And when the first birthday rolls around, the father sits sober and dejected and trying to be strong and the mother openly weeps. But they bake a little cake. And they turn out the electric light and they light the candles. And they have a little candle there and they light it and they try to think they’ve got him with them. But he’s not there. Finally, in despair, the mother turns her back, throws herself across the bed and sobs. And father comes and stands around awkwardly and doesn’t know what to say. He feels it too. All they’ve got now is a celebration. The babe has died.

And I told those Methodists, Baptists and Presbyterians, watch that you don’t lose out of your heart the life of Christ, the life of God, and have nothing left but of celebration. Nothing left but Good Friday and Maundy Thursday and Easter and all the rest. Look out that you don’t lose it all and have nothing but empty arms and empty hearts and a celebration that has no meaning. And I wouldn’t have said it to them if I couldn’t have said it to you.

So, I say to you today, let’s watch it. They were great days, those days, the day He was born, and the day He died and the day He rose and triumphed the Lamb, risen to be a Lion. Those are great days. And we have the marked on the calendar and we celebrate them. But let’s look out. They are not just candles on the cake of a religion that’s dead, for it can happen. The world can be too much with you. And you can sell out your spirituality and be nothing but a hollow shell. And yet you can celebrate and buy flowers and go through the motions and have a celebration and light the candle, but there’s nothing living in it.

But we can have all of these. We can have them both. Mama and Papa can have both. They can have the celebration and the boy, by the grace of God, if he lives–they can have both. So, you and I can have both. We can meet and sing such brilliant and beautiful songs as we’ve been singing this morning about His rising again and opening heaven and closing hell and triumphing over the grave. We can sing them and celebrate, but we can celebrate a living Christ in our midst. We don’t have to have one or the other. We can have both.

So, we today celebrate. We celebrate the Easter of His rising and triumph. But it’s not a hollow empty thing for those who believe and follow Him into reality. He’s still here. He’s with us. He’s with us this morning. And at the Lord’s Supper, we will have what our Episcopal friends call the Real Presence. He’s here, living, a real presence. We do show forth His death. Yes. Till He comes. Yes. In the meantime, His real presence is with us.

We will now go on into the celebration of the Lord’s Supper this Easter morning. And it is for all of God’s children. It’s not for the members of this church only. You may feel free if your heart sings this morning with us that Jesus is risen and He’s yours. May you feel free to share with us and thus make our community complete.

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“The Consequences of the Resurrection“

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“The Consequences of the Resurrection”

Author and Pastor A.W. Tozer

April 5, 1959

A great, solid, hard fact that won’t erode nor soften nor chip away, but a great, solid fact of history, something took place. The God-Man rose after His Passion. He showed Himself alive, said Luke. He showed Himself alive after His Passion by many infallible proofs. These infallible proofs have satisfied the simple people, the plain people, scholars, geniuses, great men, and men of all nations since that time, so far as I’ve heard about them. The Son of Man is risen again.

Now, this event doesn’t come and go. It remains. We only celebrate it. But this event has consequences. And because of this event, this great historic event, things can never be the same. Never can they be the same. They cannot be the same in heaven, for the everlasting doors opened wide to receive Him and He sat down beside the Father, the Majesty in the heavens. And the earth can never be the same, because He who was God came, stayed awhile, did His world-shaking work and went again, and left the earth different from what He found it.

And Israel can never be the same. Israel scattered all over the world. Something happened that day. Something happened that morning as the sun was rising. And for Israel, it changed things, it confirmed things. It made possible for God to fulfill the Scriptures which the holy prophets did write.

And because of this event, the gentile world will never be the same. Somebody else now is in authority. Somebody owns the nations of the world all around from pole to pole, all because He rose and man’s responsibility now is confirmed. It’s the same, no arguments anymore, nothing unsettled or uncertain. He did come. He did live. He did die. He did rise and there are consequences. And because of this great fact, the people called Christians stand by themselves. They stand by themselves unique among men. They stand by themselves, reconciled, forgiven, accepted before God in the Beloved, related to God as sons.

I don’t think many Christians stop to meditate on this, but let us this morning; that because of this great historic fact, one consequence is that the people called Christians are now related to God as sons in a way they couldn’t be before. And these sons of God are commissioned, the Christian because of that open grave, because of that triumphant ascension. The Christian is a commissioned man. He is not his own. He is one whose life now is completely committed.

An Englishman said on one occasion, a churlish, impatient Englishman, when the claims of religion was being pressed upon him, he said, things have come to a pity pass when we allow religion to interfere with our daily living. I think he was an ignorant man, and as such, God will have mercy on him. But my friends, the Christians, because Christ rose from the grave, the Christians are those who are interfered with. The cross of Christ slices, slices into the life of every Christian.

Every man who believes on Jesus Christ savingly, the cross of Christ slices into his life like a spear into the side of Jesus. There’s interference there all right, sharp contradiction. The old life changes and things aren’t as they were. The empty grave made a difference. It’s not simply something that we talk about as we talk about Abraham Lincoln’s assassination or some other lovely or terrible or wonderful scene in history. But this has consequences on every human being that breathes the breath of life today, and particularly upon the church. The church is commissioned and the church is empowered. Let’s not forget it.

You have seen the Alliance Witness for this issue, if you have not, they can be picked up out there in the lobby. But if you have seen it, perhaps you took time to read the great sermon by the Methodist preacher, Daniel Steele on the authority of the believer, the rights of the Christian, what rights we have. The signet seal of God is given to the Christian. That Christian goes forth in complete authority carrying more authority before this world than our ambassadors carry when they go to foreign capitals to represent our land. Carrying more authority than our soldiers carry. Carrying more than any man, for the Christian has the authority of God, authorized completely and empowered and obligated beyond other men.

Although I don’t like ever to talk when I’m preparing a sermon and I’m praying and thinking it through and setting down a word here or there that I want to remember. I rarely use the word obligation or obligated or duty or dutiful. I rarely use those words. Perhaps it was my early upbringing as a Christian. I was taught in those early days that I did not serve God by duty or obligation. I serve God out of the sheer joy of serving Him.

Yet I know there’s another side to it. And I know that some of the old Puritan writers made a very strong and noble case for our obligation to God. But service that is done as an obligation is not much of a service. That is why I never in 30 years have I appealed to you to be loyal. Never in 30 years, have I said, be loyal to your fellowship, be loyal to your church. Never, I trust, can it be found anywhere in print or on tape or can it be remembered that I ever said it? If I did, it might have been a weak moment, or when I meant it in a certain context. But for the most, I have never said be loyal, be loyal, now you’ve got a duty to perform. I think that’s the purest, lowest approach ever to take toward the work of God. I have never served God because I felt I had an obligation. I have served God because I felt it was one of the highest privileges accorded to mortal man. I have served God because I feel that I have a privilege higher than the very angels above.

And it’s not an obligation or a duty, something that I do, because the pressure is on me and I cannot help it. Rather, it is something that I do joyfully out of my love for Christ, I do not say that there are not duties and obligations. But I say that that’s not the highest motivation behind the service of God. Rather, we are permitted. We are privileged, we are allowed of God to share with Him.

A little farm boy, when he gets big enough to be able to toddle and keep from falling over the furrows, when he goes out with his daddy into the field, his smiling, good-natured father will allow him to do some little thing. And he considers that the highest privilege. No farmer needs to say to a five-year-old boy, Junior, I will let you do this. Why, anything that he can do, he’s delighted to do. Or the little girl in the kitchen four years old, so eager, so eager to do something that Momma’s doing. You don’t have to say, now, it’s your obligation as my daughter to do this. Why, she’ll break dishes for you joyfully. She’ll drop them joyfully for you, happily, and spoil the dough gladly, just for the joy of doing it because Mama does it. And so I follow along beside my Savior. And I know I’ve dropped many a dish. I know that I’ve spoiled many a bit of dough and I know that I failed God. But I also know that He smiles because He knows why I did it. I did it because I wanted to be along with Him, the privilege of it.

Now, that great event in the opening verses of this chapter, there were Mary and the other Mary. And there was the great earthquake. And there was the angel of the Lord that descended from heaven and rolled back the stone from the door. And his countenance was like lightning and his raiment white as snow. And for fear of him, the keepers did shake and became as dead men. There’s the great fact. And the disciples now get a change of direction. These women represented all the rest of the disciples, and they represent you and me today. And it says in verse one, they came to see the sepulcher. And these women, their direction was toward the sepulcher. Notice it. They were directed toward the sepulcher. But verse eight said, they departed quickly from the sepulcher with fear and great joy, and did run to bring the disciple’s word.

Now, this set the direction for the church and for all the disciples. It’s away from the sepulcher. You know, what is that poem that says that our hearts, like muffled drums, are beating funeral marches to the grave. I’ve often wondered how, when congregations met and sang, we are going down the valley one by one with our faces toward the setting of the sun. Down the valley where the mournful cypress grows where the stream of death in silence onward flows. I wondered how they could look at each other without breaking out laughing, because we’re not going down any valley, and we’re certainly not going down a valley where there’s cypress trees that are hanging and mournful aspens. We are risen. They departed quickly from the sepulcher. With fear and great joy they did run. And though later they went by the natural way of death, they went into no valley. They went where their Lord went.

So, I couldn’t possibly sing that without breaking into a grin. The idea that the Church of Christ, 1900 years after the angel had rolled back the stone contemptuously and sat on it. The idea that we can sing, we’re going down the valley, one by one, with our faces toward the setting of the sun. No. The man who wrote that was still living back in the gospels, or back in the Old Testament, for the time being. I don’t know who he was, and don’t remember, don’t intend to bother looking it up. Because if he’s with his Lord, he’s with his Lord. But I don’t know why he left us that legacy, because the Christian direction is not toward the grave. The Christian direction is away from the grave.

And I say that not only did these women, when they ran, set the direction, but they set the mood. It said they had fear and great joy. Their fear wasn’t the eating, gnawing fear. It wasn’t anxiety and apprehension. It was another kind of fear. It was the joyous fear that men feel in the presence of supernatural beings and the holy powers. It was delicious, a delightful fear; fear and great joy. And this also set the example, because they did run to bring the word.

Verse nine says, as they went, Jesus met them, and they could not see Him by looking in. They ran to the grave to look in. But as they went, Jesus met them. They couldn’t see Him in there for He wasn’t there. Why? Why? Because He had come out. But, as they went, He greeted them. Now, I want you to hear this. That as they went, He greeted them. On their way to the tomb, they didn’t see Him. But, on their way out, with their backs to the tomb, He greeted them.

Now, let’s break in right here with a discordant note. I didn’t put it here. The Holy Ghost wrote it here. It tells us this. It says that they were going to hold, some of the watch came into the city and showed unto the chief priests all of the things that were done. When they were assembled with the elders and they had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers, saying, see ye, His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we slept. And of course, that would put any soldier into immediate trouble with his superiors. Your word would be, why, we gave you the watch. You were to stay awake. Soldiers are shot for falling asleep on duty under certain circumstances. And those soldiers knew they would be in trouble. And they said, if we say, we fell asleep and these disciples stole away his body, we’ll be in trouble. And then they said, well, but if it comes to the Governor’s ear, we will persuade him and secure you. They wouldn’t have, and probably didn’t. But that’s what they said. So, they took the money and did as they were taught. And this saying is commonly reported among the Jews unto this day.

Now, why is that here? Why is that here in the midst between, lying between the open grave and the Great Commission; the fear and joy of the disciples; the happy racing away with the message; the the strong promise, I will be with you to the end of the world, lo, I’m with you always, go ye into all the world. All this radiant delight, right in the middle of it is this awful story of religious people who hoped to turn the clock back and buy and pay for testimony that was false in order to save their own hides and nip in the bud, this Jesus story.

Think of it my brethren. Think of the awful horror of this. Right in the presence of the resurrected Christ. Right there with the open grave, and right there with the shining angel and with the living person of Jesus, this awful thing occurs. Did they hope to turn back the wheel of God? Did they hope to put the man back in His grave again by saying He’d never come out? Did they hope to send Him back to death again, who had conquered death? They hoped to do it. They’re forgotten and their names are not known. But the name of Jesus has circled the globe. And if all the hymns that were written in praise of that One who came out that morning were in one book, nobody in this building could lift that book. Nobody, nobody, not two men could carry it out if all the hymns of the Greek and the Latin and the German and the English and all the rest. I tell you; they’re forgotten. And they’re anonymous, faceless men, hunting the grave they said they had stolen Jesus out of, but Christ lives.

Why is it there? I suppose it’s because we’re on the earth. It wouldn’t be there in heaven, and it won’t be there in heaven. And if this scene had taken place in heaven, it wouldn’t be there. But it took place on earth. And never forget this Christian, no matter how happy you may be this morning, and I hope you’re too happy to contain, but no matter how happy you may be, remember this, that there isn’t a garden without a serpent; that there isn’t a rosebush without a thorn; that there isn’t a city without a cemetery, don’t forget it; and that there isn’t a human being without a pain, then forget it. The world lies here all about us, but Christians are another breed of people all together. And even among Christians still down here, there’s thorns in our rose. And there’s likely to be trouble, even among the dear people of God, because there’s somebody here that won’t let us have all this joy to ourselves, they won’t. They won’t allow us to run joyfully in fear and wonder to tell the story of the resurrected Christ. They’ll trip us up somewhere, somewhere there’s a little conspirators group buying false testimony.

And it says here that they paid to have this told abroad, large money, it said, a bought and paid for lie. And here’s the tragedy, that for millions, this became history, and for millions, it is still history. And there are those today after 1900 years that still hear the echo of those words, “while we slept, his disciples stole him away.” And they don’t believe that Christ rose from the dead. They believe that His loving disciples laid him reverently and lovingly in Joseph’s new tomb, but that while the Roman soldiers slept, the disciples stole him away, and falsely reported that he had risen from the dead. That lie was bought and paid for, and it has affected the thinking of nineteen centuries.

Now, Christ commissions them, but He commissions them by telling them first of all that He had all the authority there was. In this instance, the word power there doesn’t mean power, it means authority. Other places it means power. Ye shall receive power when the Holy Ghost comes upon you. That means power. But here it means authority. Authority and power always go together in the Bible. Jesus Christ couldn’t have had authority without power. How could He? How could Jesus Christ be commissioned of God to bring the world under His feet and to rein from the river to the ends of the earth and not have power to enforce His authority? No, he couldn’t.

What good is power without authority and what good is authority without power? Khrushchev has power without proper authority. There are men who have authority, but no power to enforce it. They’re overthrown by rebellions. To do His work, Christ must have both authority and power, and He has both. He is Himself power. And so He gives to the Christians this same authority. He gives to the child of God authority, and every Christian has that authority. But not every Christian has the power, because he hasn’t paid the price to receive it. Ye shall receive power, but not every Christian has believed that and has waited before God until the power came.

Anyway, the authority and the power are His and ours. Go ye therefore He said. Go ye. Why? Because I have the authority. You’ll never be any place where I can’t take care of the situation He said. He said, I’ll never send you any place, and not all the camels or airplanes in the world can take you anyplace where I haven’t authority. He said, I have all authority. No situation can ever develop where I don’t have authority. I have all authority. Remember, He said that. He said, go ye therefore because I have the authority, go ye, go into all the world. He said, you do these three things, make disciples out of all nations, preach the gospel.

Did any of you read Mrs. Walter Post’s article about the Ilaga Valley. That has sent a happy thrill around the world. I received a call just last week from one of the largest missionary societies, a gospel missionary society, larger than our own, slightly. And the man’s voice was hushed as he said, I’ve just been reading Mrs. Post’s, report of God’s working in the Ilaga Valley. He said, you know, we want to publish it in our magazine. And so, we got permission to publish it. We’re sending him the pictures. They’re going to carry it in their magazine, TEAM, the Evangelical mission, the Swedish crowd that’s now taking in everybody and they’re a great and growing concern.

Well, the delight of it, the delight of it, the Ilaga Valley wide open. God sent them in there and said, go and make disciples there. They went and made disciples. Not very nice-looking disciples. The picture we sent the editor to reproduce, certainly they weren’t in formal clothes. They were squatting around, almost anyway. But the point is, they were believing on Christ by the scores, meeting together and saying, let’s, let’s learn about this Jesus, we want to obey and we want to do what He says to do.

Incidentally, that article comes by a new arrangement that we have in the Weekly, the Witness in order that we have now in every field, foreign correspondents whose business it is, elected by their own field conference, to report such things to us. I think I can safely say that you’re going to see lots better foreign field reporting now from here on.

Well, anyway, He said, go and make disciples of all nations and baptize them. Then He said, teach them. I want you to notice, He didn’t say, teach them, period. He didn’t say teach them My commandment, period. He said teach them to observe my commandments. It was a strong verb in there. He said, go first win them, then baptize them, then teach them to do after my commandments. He said, If you will do that, lo, I am with you, lo, I am with you.

My dear friends, Easter is today and tomorrow and next week and always. The victory is today and next Sunday and next week. And the power is today and next week and the week after next. The joy and the authority and the happy obligation, to use a word that I claim I don’t like to use. The privilege at all hours and it’s tomorrow, it’s today, it’s next week. Shortly we’re going to hear the words, ye do show the Lord’s death till He come. Why has He not come along ago. I don’t hope to nor claim to know anything of the deep secrets of God’s dispensational plans. But I do know this, that until He comes, He will have His people busy gathering pearls, bringing in lost lambs, and winning souls. And He said, go ye therefore and lo I am with you.

Beginning next Sunday, we are going to spend a week in thinking over again, our privileges granted us by the open tomb and the shining angel and the command of our Savior.

Now my friends, the great wonder is, He appeared after His Passion. That’s the great wonder, He showed himself alive after His Passion. And he said it would be so and when they went where they told them to go, He appeared unto them. As they went, He appeared.