In Germany, there is a well-known story, a very old story, a very famous story, which has become the subject of operas. And these operas are often performed every year in various countries in the world. And that is the famous story of Faust. I wonder if you know the story of Faust. At least if you have done a little literature, I assume you have heard the name. The story of Faust is about a certain Dr. Faust, a philosopher, whom Satan ensnared by offering him youth and certain supernatural powers by which he could obtain the things in this world that he wants.
Well, what do you want? What do most people want? Well, what they want is riches, position, and love. A happy marriage, love life, something like this. And so, the desire for these things, of course, are unattainable unless one has youth. If you are too old, you are too old to love. Too old to enjoy your riches. Too old to enjoy position. And so, youth, and good health, which is supposed to be part of the purpose of youth, is something that is so desirable to the heart. And so, Faust, like everyone else, longed for these things, which his learning in philosophy could not ascertain for him. And so, the old German story about Faust, in a sense, sums up what man wants, and how Satan is able to capitalize upon these longings of the heart. That Satan is able to use this as a bait dangling in front of you, and saying, "Hey, come this way. Come to me, and I will give you the kingdoms of this world," even as the Lord Jesus was promised by Satan in the temptation.
He said to Jesus, you remember in the temptation in Matthew chapter 4, you just bow down before me. Give me some honor. Acknowledge my name and my authority. And the kingdoms of this world are mine to give you. The story of Faust sums up this idea. Because the temptation that was offered to Jesus by Satan is offered to all of us, if we would but bow down to him. If we would but give him honor and praise — that is, give Satan honor and praise. If we are willing to give our souls over to him, he is willing to give us a lot of things in return. You can have wealth. Position. These are the things that turn your mind away from God, from spiritual things. He will tell you that these eternal things, they are but airy-fairy. The concrete things, as they are called in this world — the things which pass away seem to be so concrete. The things which endure forever seem to the carnal mind remote. A degree in your hand is so solid, so it seems. At least you can feel the diploma, if you can't feel the degree. At least the paper you can feel. And then you can see the words written on it: Bachelor or Master, or like our friend Faust, Doctor of Philosophy. So concrete.
The problem is, when you reach the end of the road, that paper has a way of crumbling in your hands. It doesn't seem to matter anymore. But Satan has a way of making these things extraordinarily attractive. And he is going to offer these things to you. And he has the power to do so. Make no bones about it. He has power to do so. He does. And many a person has experienced that. Those who will choose the world — Satan can give you many things.
And so, Dr. Faust made a deal with Satan. He looked at these things and they fascinated him. And he thought, "I'd like to have these things." And Satan said, "Okay. Fine. I made an offer to Jesus long before you. He was much greater, more powerful, more intelligent than poor little Dr. Faust. But he was not as clever as you, Dr. Faust. Because he turned my offer away. But I am sure you are a man of much higher intelligence, and you will see the excellence of my offer, and you will accept my offer, will you not, Dr. Faust?" Of course, his ego getting bigger, being praised all the time by no less an intelligence such as Satan — and he is quite an intelligence. And so he said, "Okay. I'll make a deal with you. But I think, Satan, you are a little bit tricky too. I have, you know, somewhere read the Bible. I mean, it's a long time ago since I turned into my Bible. But I have read somewhere that you are quite tricky. And don't forget, I am a Doctor of Philosophy." Ah. You just acknowledged my intelligence.
So, before I start signing some deal with you, I got to have some assurance that I can enjoy the things you promised to me. Because otherwise, just the moment I swallowed the thing, I got the hook already in my throat. I have no time even to enjoy the bait. At least let me have time to enjoy the bait, and that's not too bad. And then, well, if you want to fry me in your pan, that's another story. But give me a chance first to enjoy the bait.
So, he signs with Satan, who in the story, of course, is called by another name. He is called Mephistopheles in the story. He appears as a man talking with Faust. Mephistopheles then says, "Okay. Well, the deal is this. I will give you all these things. But when you die — when you die — your soul belongs to me." Faust thinks, "Well, who cares? When I die, I die. Okay? So as long as in this world, I've got what I want. When I die, who cares what happens after that?" Does that sound familiar to you? That is how the worldly man thinks. Who cares after we die? Who worries about whether there is resurrection or no resurrection? I mean, we live here for today. I am a practical man. I am concerned what happens today and tomorrow and the day after that while I live. And what happens after I die — well, Satan can take my soul after I die. He can have it. Does that sound familiar to you? Does it sound like the thinking which has gone through your mind from time to time? Do you see in yourself a reflection of Dr. Faust?
Well, Dr. Faust, for all his philosophy, had precisely this kind of mentality. He thought, "Anyway, my life is going to end, and when it ends, who cares what happens after death. If I go to hell, I go to hell. If I fry in Satan's pan, he wants to eat me, it's okay with me. He is a roaring lion looking for somebody to devour. Well, he can have my corpse when I am finished. But now, in this life, I am going to enjoy love." The story of Faust, of course, goes on because a nice girl appears on the scene, and this part I won't go into. In the end, of course, he tries to marry this girl. In the end, the girl, somehow, according to the story, gets rescued and does not share Faust's fate. But in the end, Faust is taken away by Satan, whereas Marguerite, the girl, is rescued and goes to be with the Lord. But that's another part of the story. I am only concerned right now that he wanted to enjoy all the good things of this world — just like we have on our Chinese chopsticks, you see: Fu, Lu, Shou, and everything is there. And Faust wants all of these goodies, all these goodies in the world. And who can give it to him? Satan. That's the one.
You see, Satan is playing a chess game with us. And he's rather good at chess. You want to beat Satan at chess, you have to work really hard. He's had thousands of years of practice, and you have only a few years of practice. Let me tell you, there's no chess player in this world who can beat Satan at this game. And in the museum, the famous museum in Paris called the Louvre — and if you go to Paris, make sure you visit the Louvre — there is a painting, a very beautiful painting, a famous painting of Faust, where he is playing chess with Mephistopheles. Mephistopheles, as I told you, is Satan portrayed in a human form, playing chess with Faust. And the picture portrays Mephistopheles making the final move: checkmate on Faust. And Faust is playing for his life. He's not just losing a game. The point of this painting is that, with that checkmate, Faust loses everything. As the Lord Jesus says, "What will you give in exchange for your soul?" Well, Faust was willing to give his soul in exchange for these transient goodies.
We are playing for our life. We are playing for our life. And what we find here is that, in this painting, Faust is checkmate. In this sense, of course, the whole world is checkmate. There is none of us who can win this game if left to ourselves. There is not one of us who is going to be able to come through victorious against Satan. And one day there was a great chess player who was there in the Louvre, looking at this painting, admiring this painting. Because, you see, if you are a car fanatic, you like to look at pictures of cars. And if you are a ski fanatic, you like to look at pictures of skiing, snow scenes and so on. And of course, chess players like to look at paintings of chess. And so when he got there, where does he go? He goes and studies the painting of the chess game going on. And of course, being a chess player, he would be studying the chess board on the painting. And as he was studying the chess board, he suddenly shouted out, "Wait! Satan, wait! You see, Faust has one more move. He has yet another move, you see." Now that one move might turn the whole game around. It might yet save Faust, you see.
It's interesting, isn't it? He saw a move that neither the painter apparently nor Faust obviously had seen. Now this fact is very, very significant. This is what brings us to Easter. You and I were checkmate by Satan. In this game of enjoying the pleasures of sin, Satan got us trapped. He had us completely ensnared. He had us checkmate. We could never win that game. We were playing for our lives, and we are losing. Everyone is losing. You are losing the battle for your life. One by one, the pieces are taken off the chess board. One by one, everyone is gone.
But then, the man, the Son of God came. And he looked at this chess board in which we are playing for our lives. And when Jesus came, he looked at that chess board in our battle with Satan. And we looked there and we were checkmate. And the Lord Jesus looked at the board and said, "There is one more move." And he made that move for us. And we know that move. That move which turns the whole scene around. That is what the death and resurrection of Christ can be portrayed as. You and I will never be able to win this battle, this game for our lives. You know it. I am sure you don't have to have a PhD in philosophy like Faust to understand that you are not going to win this game. And if you do think that you can win this game, you obviously have not grasped the situation of what it is we are playing for, what are the stakes in this game of life. Nor do you understand the skill and power of the enemy. For most of us, we have long since come to see that man has no way to save himself. He has no way to win this game. That unless you put your trust in Jesus, you have no hope.
Now today, in the time that remains to us, I would like to speak very briefly, in fact, about how the resurrection — this move, this one move that turns everything around — affects your life and mine. What does it have to do with you and with me? What does the resurrection have to do with your life? That is the point I want to get at.
I don't want to speak about the resurrection in terms of so-called historical facts. I don't want to speak about the research that has gone into the details of the resurrection. And these researches are valuable. I am in no way going to say that they have no value. They are valuable. Books like "Who Moved the Stone" and other such books are very helpful to us when we try to realize that the resurrection can be demonstrated in a very rational, in a very meaningful, in a very convincing way, if you are willing to sit down and look at the facts.
How is it that we know Jesus has risen from the dead? The great religious leaders of this world — they have their tombs somewhere. Mohammed is buried in Mecca. And Buddha has various parts of his body, if I may say so respectfully, distributed in various places. I mean, there is a great pagoda in Burma, in Rangoon, where one of his teeth is kept. And other parts of his body, I am told, are distributed here and there, and they are reverenced and revered, which is simply to acknowledge that Buddha was a great man, but he is dead and buried, and bits of his body are there left behind in this world. Great religious leaders have come and gone, and their tombs are with us. But there is no tomb of Jesus in this world. Nowhere do you find a tomb of Jesus, except an empty one. There is no coffin, there is no body. There is no body. That is the remarkable thing about Jesus.
Now, I said I am not going to go into the demonstration of these details. What I want to speak about, rather, is: how do we know in our own lives that Jesus is risen? Can we somehow experience his power? Because unless we experience his power, intellectual persuasion is not what salvation is about.
Why is this question so important? Let me read to you in Romans chapter 10 and verse 9. Romans 10:9. And this is what the Apostle Paul says to us: "Because, if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Now, the object of faith, Paul says, the means by which you are going to be saved, is that you believe. That is, you must have faith. This is what he says here. Believe that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead.
Now, let me ask you right away: do you believe that God raised him from the dead? Well, you say, "What difference does it make if I believe? I read a book and I study the analysis. You told me that the tomb is empty. I can't explain how come there is an empty tomb. I don't know where Jesus went to. But looking at the evidence, okay, if you want me to believe that Jesus rose from the dead — I mean, I'm being brought up in a Christian country, I've had it drummed into my head since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, that Jesus rose from the dead. And so, you want me to believe that? I have no difficulty to believe. I mean, I come from a Christian country anyway." And, in this sense, we can all believe because that's part of our tradition. Is salvation then a matter of tradition? Is it because it's so easy for you to accept that Jesus rose from the dead because your resistance has been broken down by constant repetition? That we are saved simply because we believe a thing because everybody believes it around us in some sense or other? If that is what Paul means, then we are fortunate just to have been brought up in a Christian tradition; we'll be saved simply by our traditions. And where does faith come into all this? Is faith simply a faith in tradition? Or is it faith in the living, actual, experiential power of God?
Now, we must remember that when Paul was writing these things, it was an unheard-of thing that anyone rose from the dead. It was unheard of. There was no long tradition by which we got our minds brainwashed into believing that Jesus rose from the dead. I have to apologize — or maybe I should not apologize — I can say that this is a form of brainwashing, because simply by constant repetition, it is well known by any political propagandist that if you keep repeating a thing... and we from China who have been brought up, who have lived under the communist system, are very well aware of this — that by constant repetition, you can be brainwashed into believing a thing. And this is not faith. Faith is when you accept something for quite different reasons than that. And we are going to study in a moment very briefly what faith means. Because nothing is so important as understanding what faith means in Scripture.
But let's become very clear about this. Paul has made it clear that salvation depends on two things. And these two things, of course, are related to each other. First, that you accept Jesus as Lord. He is the Lord Jesus Christ. But of course, if he is dead, he can't be Lord in your life, except in some honorary title. Either he is really Lord in your life, in which case he is Lord right now, in which case he is Lord in some meaningful sense, and not just like the House of Lords, that everybody is called Lord this and Lord that in England — but Lord in the sense that he actually lives in a way that has to do with your daily life, namely that he governs your daily life. And in order for this to be true, in order for this to be real, he has to be alive. That means, since he was crucified, he has to be risen from the dead in order to be Lord in your life and mine.
Now, Lordship is a very real, very concrete thing. It has nothing to do with tradition. Most people who live in traditional Christianity never live under the Lordship of Christ. To live under his Lordship is a concrete step of faith.
Now, let us come quickly to understanding what faith really is. This faith in the resurrection. Paul in Romans expounds for us the meaning of faith. And we live in a generation that has very little understanding of faith. And if you are not a Christian, I would like you to be very clear about what faith means in the Bible. I am not asking you to go away today and say, "Okay, he convinced me that the tomb is empty, and for this and that other reasons, it must be that Jesus rose from the dead, and therefore I believe in it." If you believe that Jesus rose from the dead in that sense, you are not really better off than Satan. Because Satan believes that too. He knows it's true. He was an eyewitness to the whole thing. He was there when it happened. You weren't there. I wasn't there. But he was there. Satan believes that Jesus rose from the dead too. But that doesn't save him.
It's the same thing as James says in James chapter 2, verse 19: "You believe there is one God, you do well. Satan also believes, and he shivers every time he thinks about it." And every time Satan thinks about the resurrection, he shivers. It terrifies him. It terrifies him. It terrifies him. It doesn't terrify you, because for you at this moment, this whole thing may not be real.
So the first point I would like to make, and there are three main points concerning the meaning of faith. The first point is this: unless we understand that the resurrection is a promise of God, and that it is a promise we must take hold of by faith, the resurrection will be of no meaning to you whatsoever, spiritually speaking. No meaning to you. It may be a historical curiosity, something that you like to think about, very interesting, very fascinating, but it's not going to help you.
When Paul says that he who believes that Jesus rose from the dead will be saved, he is talking about believing in the sense in which Abraham believed the promise of God. Now, Paul, before he got to Romans 10, was expounding faith in Romans chapter 4, six chapters earlier. And it is very important, if you claim to be a Christian, that you understand what faith is. And don't think that because you believe that Jesus' resurrection from the dead is a historical fact, that therefore you are saved. Believing it as a historical fact saves no one. Because if believing that it is a historical fact would save you, then Satan would be the first to be saved. He believed it long ago. He knows it's true. But only when you recognize that the resurrection is a promise to you from God, that if you by faith take hold of this promise, only then will you be saved.
Let me tell you the story of Abraham again. Because in Romans chapter 4, Paul is telling us that we are justified by faith. But the question is: by what kind of faith? The word "faith" has become very loose in these days. We have faith in the bus driver, we have faith in the airplane pilot to bring us to Hong Kong or Singapore or somewhere, and we have faith in this and that and the other thing. We have faith in all kinds of things. But there is the saving faith, which marks not only its type, but its level, its standard. What is required of us? Now, Paul has made it very clear to each one of us, and I hope that it will be very clear to you, that saving faith has three main elements. And the first of these is that saving faith takes hold of the word of God or the act of God — for he often speaks in action rather than in words — as a promise.
Now, what meaning has the resurrection got for you and for me, unless we see that God is making for us a promise? That Jesus died and rose again has nothing to do with you and me, has it? What's it got to do with me? He died, he rose — good for him. It's very good for him that he rose from the dead. What's it got to do with me? Unless he died and rose, as the Bible said, for me. He didn't die for himself. He didn't need to die for himself. And if he didn't need to die for himself, he also didn't need to rise again for himself. The whole thing was for us. That's the first point we must understand. I wonder if you can grasp this point, that it is promise. It gives us hope.
Faust, as we said, was without hope. He looked at the chess board. He was checkmate. He studied back and forth with all the chess skill that he had acquired, trying to save his life. There was no hope. There was no hope. A promise is where hope comes from.
Have you seen the person who was about to get married? Very hopeful man. I just read the banns of marriage. If you saw Bentley and Sylvia today, you'll see their eyes very bright. Why? Because a few weeks from now, they will be married. And they live in hope. The hope of that marriage is what makes every day so bright, so meaningful. Outside, whether it rains or shines, who cares about that? Because there's sunshine in my soul today, they can see. That is what hope is about. Hope is what brings the sunshine into your soul. Do you live with hope or without hope? Hope is what comes from promise.
On that day — and I guess I'll be the one having to officiate at this — they are going to make their promises. The promises. The marriage vows. Those are the promises to one another. And it is from these promises that hope springs forth. No promise, no hope. But before you can get to promise and hope, there has to be faith. I mean, you've got to have some faith that the other person is going to appear on that day. Otherwise, you'll find yourself jogging down the aisle by yourself, saying, "Where is the other one?" And then all your hope fades away. And it unfortunately does happen. It happens not once or twice, but it does happen, where some bride or bridegroom goes to the church, and the other party got cold feet at the last minute. Never turned up. Never turned up. And then the hope collapses. The promise is gone. That is called disillusionment. It leaves a very bad taste. But where there is promise, there is hope. And where there is hope, there is strength. There is joy. The joy of hope.
Now I found, when I looked at the passage from Romans chapter 4 to chapter 8, I noticed that the word "hope" occurs seven times in those chapters. Let us look at hope in these chapters. Let's begin at Romans chapter 4, verse 18. We will look only at two references. Romans 4:18. And this speaks of Abraham: "In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, 'So shall your descendants be.'" Your descendants shall be for multitude as the stars in the heaven, as the sand by the sea. He didn't even have one child. And the Lord was giving him a promise that you are going to be the father of many nations, and your descendants will be as numerous as the stars of the heaven. He hasn't even got one son. Not one son to his name. But God had given him a word. And by faith, he had to take hold of the word of God, which seemed impossible of fulfillment. And he took hold of that word of God, and as a result of that, he hoped against hope. That means there is no human ground for hope. Everything stood against the possibility of hope. Why? Because he was 100 years old. And his wife, 90 years old. And God said, out of these two people — as the writer to the Hebrews says, in Hebrews 11:12, out of two people as good as dead, in terms of reproduction anyway, they are as good as dead — God said, "Out of you two, out of you who are dead, I will bring forth life."
And so he, 100 years old, hoped against hope, because he trusted God for the promise. The promise spoke to him, and he took hold of it. The resurrection speaks to you. And I wonder if you take hold of it. Because if you aim to be saved, this Easter day cannot be just another red-letter day in the calendar. The message of Easter has to be a promise to you. But if you did not see it as a promise to you, then of course it says nothing to you. Do you see it as a promise? Does the promise of Easter say anything to you? Or do you think it has nothing to do with you? Faith takes hold of the promise and says, "Jesus rose from the dead for me." Because that is what God says. God says so.
# The Meaning of Faith (Part 2) - Experiencing and Channeling the Resurrection Power
"I claim it for myself." And that is what Paul says in Romans. If you believe that Jesus rose from the dead, in this sense, as promised — he rose from the dead for you — you will be saved. That is, if you can take hold of the promise. I stress this point very much. Can you? Are you able to take hold of it?
Hope comes from the resurrection. And the word "resurrection," Paul uses in this same section, Romans 4 to 8, uses it ten times. He speaks of the resurrection of Christ — not counting our resurrection — the resurrection of Christ ten times. You and I, if we are going to have any hope in this chess game against Satan, will come only from the fact that Jesus broke the chains of death and rose. And I take hold of this promise to me.
Now the second thing, and we move on quickly, is this. A promise, if you truly take hold of it, what will happen? It means you apply it into your life, do you not? It is going to have a very definite effect in your life. Because if it has no effect in your life, then the promise remains a promise outside of you. It has nothing much to do with you. If you say that you accept the promise, something is going to happen to you.
Let's take the case of Abraham. I've already mentioned that he was 100 years old. His wife was 90 years old. God said, "I'm going to give you a promise. This time next year, you are going to have a son." So you just say, "Oh yeah, yeah, okay. Thank you for the promise. Fine." Over? Not quite so over. Not so fast. Once you accept a promise, something is going to happen to you. Because for that promise to be fulfilled in you, everything is going to happen in your life. Things are going to change. Things are going to turn around in your life.
Take Abraham, and take Sarah. The moment they take hold of this promise, something is going to happen. Because up to that point in time, they could never produce children. They couldn't. There was a natural deficiency, as it says. They were barren. Couldn't produce children. So for the promise to become real in their lives, God had to do something to them, isn't it? God had to do a transforming work in their bodies, so that the body that could not, even in their youth, produce a child, would in their old age — which is even more impossible — produce a child. He had to do something in their lives. He had to bring about an inner transformation, whereby the impossible happens: life comes out of the dead. But that is something remarkable.
And let me tell you this. If you say that you accept the promise of God that Jesus rose for you, immediately God is going to do something in your life. Something is going to change. You're going to feel the difference. I wonder if you have ever had the feeling that you slept on your arm, and your arm went to sleep in bed. You pinch it, you move it — no feeling. I've had it happen to me once or twice. Terrifying feeling. You wake up, and you find you can't lift your arm up. Your arm is lying there. You move your body, and your arm doesn't move. You've cut off your blood supply by sleeping in an awkward position. And I've actually touched my arm, hit it, and there was no feeling at all. I had to lift my arm, and it dropped down like this. I'm sure some of you have had that experience.
But have you had the experience when life goes back into the arm? Oh, pins and needles. It's coming alive. You feel something is happening to your arm. And slowly, ah, it's moving. I wonder what Abraham and Sarah felt when God's power came into their lives. Suddenly they felt, "Hey, something is happening to me. I think we can do it." The promise of God is beginning to be experienced as power in my life. I'm sure they could feel it. And let me tell you this: this is the dynamic and the beauty of the Christian life. We don't talk theories in the Christian life — at least not when we are talking about biblical Christianity. The day you take hold of the promise of God, the power of his resurrection, you are going to feel the power of God beginning to do something in your life. You are going to feel something change in your life.
Oh, I have felt it. I have felt the power of God coming into my life. This dead corpse began to feel something. First, the pricking, stinging of conscience. Have you felt it? The things that you thought were not so bad before — who worries about those things? "I committed this and that sin, and everybody commits this and that sin." And suddenly, when the power of God comes into your life, the needles begin to prick into your conscience. You say, ah, you look uncomfortable. Suddenly, you have a sense of sin. There. There is the evidence of God's power. The resurrection power to bring you back to life: the pins and the needles of repentance. You feel powerful conviction inside. And you begin to kneel down before the Lord and say, "Lord, have mercy on me. I am a sinner." And you say, "Why am I doing this? I am not a religious man." And then you still can't help yourself: "Lord, forgive me. I have been a hypocrite. I have lived hypocritically to this day." Yes, there is the power of God, the pins and the needles. And thanks be to God, you are coming alive. You are coming alive. The Spirit of God is coming into your life, and he is beginning to move.
And when I hear the testimony of people sharing that they confess their sins — what moves them to confess their sins in front of everybody? Why? Because of the pins and the needles, the conscience is being bothered. Why is the conscience bothered? Because the Holy Spirit is moving in your life, and life is coming back into the deadness of your soul. That is wonderful. If your Christianity is simply an intellectual cold confession — "Okay, Jesus rose from the dead, hallelujah, I believe it" — don't kid yourself. This kind of intellectual faith in the resurrection of Christ saves nobody. Always remember, Satan believed that historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus long before you did. He believed and wasn't saved. He knows it's true and is not saved. Because the life-giving power never entered. There was never any repentance for sin. There was never turning back and confessing Jesus as Lord. No.
That is the second thing. That when you come to Jesus, when the resurrection becomes a living experience in your life, you are going to know its effect. You know something happened to you. Things are different now. Jesus has come into my life. And then you will see something else happening. You are going to see in the person who has experienced the life-giving power of Jesus in their life, there is a gleam of hope in their eyes. Our sister was sharing here earlier. The hope of salvation now comes. There is a flash in the eye. There is a confidence in the step. There is a sense of purpose and of meaning. Like the person who is going to get married — every day is so good, so bright, so happy. Of course, some people got married so long ago they forgot what it was like in those days. All that has been covered in dust and I can't remember so long ago. Well, experience it now, what God can do in your life. It will put a better spring in your step, a better gleam in your eye than ever when you got married. If you didn't get married, don't worry about that either. Don't worry about it, because God can give you more than that. More joy than that.
Take the picture of Abraham and Sarah. Imagine this. Can you imagine that old couple? I have to smile when I say this. Can you imagine Sarah gradually becoming great with child? That is something to think about. 90 years old. And you think you are old? You haven't started yet. As far as Sarah is concerned, we are babies. She is 90 years old. There is nobody here who can challenge Sarah. 90 years old and she is getting great with child. And the promise of God is going to be fulfilled. Something fantastic. Out of two dead bodies, there is going to come a life. And that life is going to be a channel of blessings to all the nations.
And so you can see, as Abraham looks at Sarah, and day by day Sarah is moving towards the fulfillment of the promise — can you see how he walks with a spring in his steps? "My God is real. He said it could be done. I mean, all my life — I am 100 years old — I never had a child. Even when I was young and vigorous, I couldn't have a child. And then one day he comes to my tent and tells me, 'Abraham, next year you are going to have a child.'" He said, "I smile to myself. God is very humorous." 100 years old, I am going to have a child. It is told there in Genesis. You read it there in Genesis: Abraham laughed to himself. Not because he doubted God — he believed God, it tells us in that section. But he laughed because he thought, "God is very humorous. He has a very interesting way of doing things. Wait till I am 100 years old, then he is going to give me a child. Look at my wife, she is 90 years old."
The Christian life is very joyful. Very joyful. So Paul says in Romans chapter 12, verse 12, "We rejoice in hope." I wonder whether you have that Abrahamic quality in your life. God has done a mighty work in our lives, and he is going to raise us up on that day. Physically, we have experienced his power, his resurrection power spiritually, and we are going to experience his resurrection power physically on that day. What a glorious message. What a glorious hope. The hope of the gospel, Paul says. That is it.
But look at the average Christian today. Do you see that gleam in the eye? Do you see the spring in the step? Or do you see him stumbling along? Who is going to become a Christian through your witness? Think of Abraham and Sarah. Do you think what kind of impact the two of them would make upon the world, in their whole community, in the whole country? I mean, they would be talking all over the country: "Did you hear that 90-year-old woman? She is going to have a child next year. Have you seen the two of them? I mean, they are jogging down the road as though they were 19." The whole country would be talking about this couple. If there were a Guinness Book of Records, they would be all over the place. At the newspapers they would have: "A 90-year-old woman." My grandmother lived to 90. And if you don't remember what a 90-year-old lady looks like, you better refresh your memory sometime. I am sure brother Chris, working in the geriatrics, has a good idea what they look like — the average 90-year-old, what they look like. Any gleam in the eye? Any spring in the footstep? My grandmother was healthy and her mind was clear up to the last minute. But her eyesight was faded. She stooped and groped along. 90 years old. I know what a 90-year-old woman looks like. And can you imagine a 90-year-old woman who is going to give birth to a child? Talk about Guinness Book of Records. The like of it has not been heard in the history of mankind. And therefore the whole country would be hearing about this.
And you know what that means? It means that Abraham and Sarah themselves become a sign in the world. They become the sign of the resurrection, whereby God brings forth life out of death. They are the sign. They are the living message of what God can do in the lives of people. Not only will Satan lose the chess game — and how he is going to lose when Jesus takes the next move for us! It checkmates the other direction. And every Christian is meant to be a living sign of the resurrection, just as Abraham and Sarah were in their generation. And to this day they are still a sign of the resurrection. And I have preached before on the message where the Lord says, "No sign will be given to this generation but the sign of Jonah." I have expounded on that. And we are to be a living message of resurrection to the world.
Are you that kind of a message? You will not be that kind of a message until you have experienced the power of the resurrection in your life. Until you have seen God's power come into you and do amazing things to your life. And then those round about you will look at you and say, "What is the reason for the hope that is within you?" as we read in Peter. And people will ask: "Why are you so joyful in hope? Why is there such a confidence in your life? Why is there such richness of meaning in your life? What is it about your life that makes you different?" As they would certainly have asked Abraham and Sarah: "This is not possible. What happened to you? What is this hope that I see? What is this child you are going to have? What is all this about?" Oh, Abraham and Sarah would be very busy preaching the gospel to their whole generation: "Our God is a God who can bring forth life out of death. That is our God."
Is there any quality in your life that interests anyone? I am so tired, brothers and sisters. I am so tired of seeing Christians groping around in this world, head down, dragging along, and you say you believe in the resurrection? When did you ever believe in it? God's power ever touch your life and make you different? When would anyone look at you and say, "There is something amazing about this person. There is a power about this person, we cannot tell." And you know who gets the glory? It is God who gets the glory. Nobody praises Abraham and Sarah. They know that this is not possible humanly. It has to be God's power. God's power.
And if people do not come and ask you, "Why are you different? Why is there a gleam in your eye? Where is this confidence coming from? Where is this joy coming from?" — when people at the place of work don't see these things, don't ask any questions — you are in trouble, my friend. You are in trouble. Because then we have to ask the question: has God done anything in your life? Have you experienced the power of the resurrection now? If you don't experience the power of the resurrection now, what gives you confidence that one day God will raise you from the dead? What gives you confidence? How do you know that's true? Maybe that's only a fairy tale. I know that God will raise me up in this body of mine. Why? Why do I have this confidence? Because I've experienced his resurrection power now, here. This is the glory of the message of the gospel.
Paul speaks about the resurrection in the past tense in several places — the resurrection in us. Resurrection is experienced by us. For example, in Ephesians chapter 2, verse 6, or Colossians chapter 2, verse 12, or Colossians 3:1. In all these places, he says the resurrection — that you have been raised up with Christ, you were raised up — is something that is past fact in your life. We have experienced it. Or as he says in Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1 and 5, that when we were dead in trespasses and sins, God raised us up by the power of the resurrection in Christ. I can speak about the resurrection of Christ because I've experienced it. I took hold of the promise. I experienced it in my life. Have you experienced it? What kind of Christianity are we talking about? We're all talking theory. We're all talking fairy tales. How do you know it's not a fairy tale? A piece of ancient tradition passed down from generation to generation. You don't know it's not a fairy tale until you have experienced God's resurrection power in your life.
Finally, quickly, and we must close, the third thing. The third thing is this: the resurrection power of Christ is something we experience in us, but not just for your own sake. We are meant to channel that power to others. Remember, the promise of Abraham — and this is the third definition of faith, the third thing about faith. First, it's a promise. Secondly, it's experienced in us. And thirdly, it's going to go through us to others. If it doesn't go through us to others, we haven't yet understood the meaning of faith. Because the promise of God is not given to satisfy you and me for our own selfish reasons. God is not a God like that. We are not an end in ourselves in this sense, but we are a means for the salvation of others.
God gave Abraham the promise, what for? For his own sake? No, but that he may become a blessing to all nations. He wants every one of us to cease to be so selfish, to be simply seeking for good experiences for ourselves. We don't live for ourselves, Paul says, and we don't die for ourselves. Now, if you are a Christian who lives for yourself and you die for yourself, then you are a Christian only in name. You have not yet understood that freedom from death means freedom from sin, which means freedom from the self. The promise to Abraham was not just for Abraham. It was that all the nations of the earth will be blessed through him.
Now, there is the other reason why we have a gleam in our eyes and a purpose in our life. We have been given this promise of the resurrection so that we may pass on the resurrection life through the Holy Spirit in us to others. And if you live for yourself today, you just do your job for your own sake, you just earn your money for your own sake, you just live for yourself — you don't understand what the biblical meaning of a Christian is. Remember Paul said, "None of us live for ourselves, none die for ourselves." By "us" he doesn't just mean the apostles; he means every Christian. How are you living today? If you don't find it interesting, if it doesn't fascinate you to be a channel of blessing to others, you don't know what it means to be a Christian in the biblical sense.
And this is the glorious transformation that takes place. You see, the third point is connected to the second. Because when the life of God comes into our life and changes us, it also changes the direction of our life. Before, it's all inward: for me and myself and this and that. But when the power, the resurrection power of God comes in, it changes your direction. You are thinking, "How can I live in such a way that I bring blessing to others?"
When you pass on to your resurrection glory, will there be anybody around who would say, "I blessed the day I met you. You were the means of channeling God's blessing to me. The water of life came to me through you. I bless God for the day that I saw you. I bless God for the day that I came to know you"? Will there be anybody around? Or will you just pass from the face of this earth, and nobody noticed you were here, and nobody cared that you were gone? Because your existence made no difference. You only lived for yourself. You made no difference to anyone else.
In John chapter 7, verse 38, the passage that I love to come back to again and again, the Lord Jesus said this: "If any man drinks of the water that I shall give him, the water of eternal life, out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water." There you see the meaning. He will turn us into a channel of blessing.
And when I studied this from the exegetical point of view, it's very interesting, because I noticed that the word "belly" — "out of your innermost belly," the Greek word koilia, that we find in John 7:38 — finds its correspondence in Genesis 15, verse 4, where God said to Abraham that your descendants, those who will inherit from you, will be those who come out of your own inward parts. And here we have a Hebrew word, me'im, and me'im is a word that corresponds almost exactly to koilia in John 7:38. In fact, from the linguistic point of view, you will know that few words correspond exactly to each other. There is a certain sphere of meaning which one word in English might cover partially another word in Chinese, for example. But very seldom do you have a word that covers completely all the nuances, all the shades of meaning of the same word from one language to another. But I have found, as I checked this word, koilia corresponds exactly to me'im in Genesis 15, verse 4, where it can mean belly, or it can mean the womb, or it can mean the heart. Very wide scope of meaning. There is no other Hebrew word that covers all these three meanings of koilia. And so it seems — and what I'm getting at is — the Lord Jesus, when he is saying this in John 7:38, he is thinking of Genesis 15:4, about Abraham. That is remarkable.
God has done a mighty work in our lives. So mighty that through us, the nations of the world will be blessed, or will bless themselves. So how will they bless themselves or be blessed? Through salvation, of course. What greater blessing is there than salvation? We are here to channel salvation to the world. In other words, the message of the resurrection is also a commission to us. It is a promise, it is an experience, and it is a commission. These are the three things that faith accomplishes by the power of God in us.
May you today experience the resurrection. Not just hear about it, not just think about it, but experience in your life what God can do. Let us pray.