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[Music] [Music] Love Story Part 5 Death Destroyed Now listen to the Word of God from the Book of Romans, the 8th chapter, verses 31 through 39.

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"What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies, who is to condemn? Is it Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us?

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Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? As it is written, 'For thy sake we are being killed all the day long. We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.' No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth

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nor anything else in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." May God bless his words and as we have given our attention to it. Let us pray. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. I don't have the words to tell you how good looking you are this morning.

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I really mean that. It's a tremendous joy to be here and to see you as you are. You know when I was in seminary, I used to think that Easter was an exercise in hypocrisy. You know why they call seminary seats of knowledge, don't you? You come into seminary thinking you know everything.

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You go out of seminary convinced you know nothing. And all of the knowledge that has been left off between your coming and going is what makes a seminary a center of knowledge. So when I was in seminary, I was convinced that Easter was an exercise in hypocrisy. I quite seriously suggested that only those people should be admitted to an Easter worship service who had a ticket.

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And tickets would be distributed on only three occasions. They would be given at the worship service on the coldest day of the winter, at the worship service on the hottest day of the summer, and at the worship service on the rainiest day of the springtime.

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And if you hadn't been there those three times, you couldn't get in on Easter. That's what I used to think, and that was immature and more than a little bit stupid. Because the fact of the matter is, this is an exciting morning, and it's exciting particularly because you are here. I don't mean that you're here just because you want to show off your Easter finery,

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or just because grandma happens to be in town, or just because everybody goes to church on Easter. As a matter of fact, more people in California will not go to church today than do. That's not the exciting thing. It's not the music that's played here. That's tremendous and exciting music, but it's not to me the most exciting thing because I've heard it before.

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Nothing I'm going to say in these next few minutes from this pulpit will be new or different. You've heard all of that before, just as I have. That's not the exciting thing. It's not this setting. You've seen that before, the splendor and the beauty of it.

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That's not the exciting thing. You are the exciting thing. And you are the exciting thing for this reason. You have come here this morning either because you know Jesus Christ is risen, or because you hope Jesus Christ is risen.

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And whether you've come because you know the truth, which is tremendously exciting, or whether you've come because you want to know if that's true, coming to Jesus to discover what's true, and that's exciting, either one you see, makes you the exciting dimension of our experience together.

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This is not an orator's device. I'm not saying this to catch on to some corner of your consciousness. This isn't the spoonful of medicine designed, or spoonful of sugar designed to make the medicine go down. This is, instead of those things, an affirmation of what is true.

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There's a whole world out there that's dying, that's on its way to death, and you have, in these minutes, separated yourself from that world. And you've come here either to affirm that you know it's possible to live in that dying world because of Jesus Christ, or because you're hoping to find a way to live in that world,

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that dying world, in and through Jesus Christ. And that's tremendously exciting. We are agreed, aren't we, that that world is dying out there. It seems to me, by whatever standard of measurement you choose to apply,

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that is the irrevocable conclusion to which you must come. You remember how 20 years ago they wrote books and said that in the 1970s, when we had perfected and designed all of the inventions which are now ours, that life would be a utopia.

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Well, here we are in the 1970s, and not only are things not utopian, but the books they're writing now, about 20 years from now, are filled with pessimism and with cynicism and with prophecies of despair about pollution and population and future shock.

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Not only no utopia now, but no utopia promised for the future. All the dreams dead at the feet of those who wrote about them. What about our hospitals, crowded to the doors with people, and physicians tell us that seven out of every ten of those people are there

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because they have died inside, died in the spirit, and now their bodies are hurrying to catch up with their collapse. And some people don't even go to the hospital. Instead, they try to lose themselves in drugs or in alcohol or like substances,

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and the end of those journeys, too. Dead end. Do we then try to give ourselves over to accomplishment through, well, through work? Not anymore.

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People don't most often work because they want to work. People don't give themselves to labor for the beauty of creation or fashioning something for the good of men. Even the great labor unions are unable to gain the support of their members

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unless the issue before them focuses on money. Yet we will work for money. Is money then the thing that will give us life? Well, I don't have to argue you into that.

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You know that money does not give joy. You know that money does not give happiness. You know that money does not give respect. The younger generation looks at the older generation

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that has spent so much time seeking money and criticizes that generation for precisely that fact. For our younger people have come to know and understand what I think we, too, have now come to know and understand,

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that we can have the richest land in the world and that land would still be dying before our very eyes. So what do we do? Lose ourselves in a world of adventure and of romance and of sex?

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Well, that's where a lot of people are trying to find their thrill and their excitement. Let's try to live like the movie stars. Let's give ourselves to love and freedom as they do. And our divorce rates skyrocket, and the venereal disease rates skyrocket,

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and the abortion rate climbs to hideous proportions. Oh, we used to think it would be a great thing to live in Beverly Hills-- big houses, big pools, big automobiles. But now we know that in Beverly Hills there are 1,200 practicing attorneys

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just to take marriages apart or to try to put them together again. And there are 34 private detective agencies, and you know what most of them are doing. And there are 172 practicing psychiatrists.

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So we're not quite so anxious to go to the sexy world of Beverly Hills again. Well, what about morality then? Is that what will hold us together in this time? The new morality of that, which is that everything I want to do is right,

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and the only thing wrong is being caught at it. Look at the world of which we are a part. See both rich and poor pilfering in stores. See great industries trying to cheat their governments.

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See the reality of a major news magazine putting on its front page as con man of the year a picture of Clifford Irving and suggesting that he was clever indeed at the crime which was his. See the crime rate climbing to the skies,

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growing even faster amongst women than it is among men. That's the kind of world in which we're living. Is the escape then to be found in the realm of the intellect? If we sharpen our minds, will that enable us to live in a dying world?

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Well, W. Somerset Maugham was one of the greatest minds of our time, a master of literature. He comes to the end of his life, this brilliant man, and what does he say at the moment of his dying?

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"My life has been wretched." That's what he said. I stand in a college dormitory room a few weeks ago, and a young college student has pasted up on the wall

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a large poster picturing Ernest Hemingway, and underneath the picture of that giant writer, this word, "endurance." To that college student, you see that mind, that intellect, that man is endurance. And how did Ernest Hemingway die?

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Why, he stuck a rifle in his mouth and blew his brains out. That's the world of the intellect. It doesn't bring us life either. Look at any dimension of the life which is ours.

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Look at our music. Look at our art. Look at the television, which we regularly ridicule and still sit and stare at. Look at our society. Look at our hospitals and our decline in mental health.

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Look at the disinterest in work. Remember that money can't buy you the things that really live. Look at the world of sex and the products that come out of it. Look at the immorality. Look at the intellectual collapse.

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Look at all of this, all about us. Don't talk about patriotism. That died a long time ago. Even some say God is dead. And the churches grow smaller, and the Sunday schools shrivel and pass away.

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And we look at all of this about us, and we remember that after we have gone through all of this, all that is left to do is die. Of course, we don't like to talk about death.

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We don't even use the word. We say he passed on, or he went over to the other side. We pay the undertaker to paint the face, though no one will be able to tell,

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although usually most people don't get on their best suits and then stretch out in a box. We don't write our wills because that's too morbid. And when we go into the hospital room where the terminal patient is lying, we say, "Oh, you look much better, and you'll be out of here by next week."

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Nobody wants to talk about dying, you see, but we all die. That's the end of it. And if all of life is dying, and in the end there is nothing but death, then to many, everything we know becomes nothing but grim jest.

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Michelangelo might just as well have carved on ice. The Parthenon been built on quicksand, and Raphael painted his Madonnas on Kleenex. And then, in the midst of a world like that,

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when you hear someone say, "I am more dead than alive," you don't find it in you to laugh, because you know the person who says that really means it. It's only the fool who looks back on those early chapters in Genesis,

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when God said to Adam and Eve, "You will not eat of that fruit, or you will die." And then Satan comes and says, "Eat of the fruit, you surely will not die." And so they eat of it. It's only the fool who reads those words and then says,

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"Look, they ate of it, and they did not die for many years." They died the moment they ingested that fruit. They died the moment they disobeyed God, because until that moment, everything had been joy and victory,

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and from that moment, everything has been heading toward death. And it's only a very proud man, or a very stupid man, who will contest that and say it is not true. But there's a rumor about it.

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There's a rumor that spreads through the world. It's always on the move, smoldering, yet it's especially to be heard at this time. And that rumor is that there is one who went through all of life without dying, but living. And there is one who even when he came to the moment of death,

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went beyond it and came back again and is alive forevermore. That's the rumor. And you've come here today either because you know that's not a rumor but a fact, or because you're hoping that's not a rumor but a fact.

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And I find that tremendously exciting. You come here today either because you are already a disciple, or like Thomas of old, you come into the midst of the disciples hoping that you too can meet the living Lord.

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And that's magnificent. So I announce to you now, to those of you who already know it, and to those of you who want to know it, Jesus Christ is alive.

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I don't assert that as an argument. I announce that as a proclamation. I know it sounds fantastic, but no more fantastic today than it sounded 2,000 years ago

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when those women hurried off to that tomb on that first Easter morning. They carried nothing with them but their pain-drenched memory. They didn't expect the sun to rise because the sun had gone down on their hopes forever. But they met a living Jesus that day, and they were so transformed

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that from that time until this, those women and all those who have followed after them live in the midst of a dying world. Those disciples who came after the women. Two men running through the streets,

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their sandals slapping on the dawn-drenched pavement. Here they come and there they go. They're nobody, villagers, peasants, fishermen. Yet they bring with them a message,

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a message which has drawn you to this room this morning and hundreds of millions like you to rooms all across the world today. What they announced that day is that they'd met a living Lord Jesus Christ. And that is the message that toppled an empire.

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The throne of the Caesars was not tipped over by the Sermon on the Mount. It was not tipped over by any miracle that Jesus ever did. It was not knocked flat by any parable that he told. It was not even brought low by the brutality of his dying on the cross.

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That empire came to an end because he rose again from the dead. That empire and every empire since then has been on a lower level than this living truth that Jesus Christ is alive.

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I come to you this morning with a heart filled, with a great joy because of the way the Apostle Paul puts this. He describes the scene and as he describes the scene, every verb that he uses is an aorist verb.

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Now an aorist verb, and you'll all be great students of the Greek language here in a moment, an aorist verb is a verb which indicates something that's past, finished, done with, over, a once for all event.

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So Paul, in describing what happened then, uses one aorist verb after another. He says, "Jesus died." It's an aorist, over and done with.

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He says, "Jesus was buried." It's an aorist, over and done with. He said, "Jesus rose." It's an aorist, over and done with.

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He says, "Jesus appeared," and he lists a whole series of people to whom Jesus appeared, all aorists, all over and done with. But then, at the conclusion of this presentation,

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his last phrase is this, "He was raised to life." And the verb here is not an aorist, it's a perfect, and a perfect verb stands for that which is not only yesterday,

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but today and tomorrow. It's the verb which indicates that which continues. So Paul sums his argument by saying, "This Jesus is alive forever."

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See, he understood that no argument could bring you to believe that Jesus rose from the dead. He understood that no philosophical or theological propositions could convince you that Jesus had risen from the dead.

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He understood that no proofs could be marshaled here which would unalterably convince you that Jesus had risen from the dead. There is only one way, Paul knew and we know today,

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there is only one way in which a person can be convinced that Jesus Christ is alive, and that is to meet him yourself. Look about you.

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There are some people who are sitting in this room this morning who are radiating the confidence which comes from having met Jesus Christ personally, and these people, these people have traded their hearts with his,

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and that's made all the difference. They know that Jesus is alive, for they have met him. I sit in a restaurant in Cincinnati, Ohio, a few months ago with Pat Matriciana,

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and we have an older lady waiting on us, a wonderful black lady, and at the end of the meal Pat looks up at her and he says, "Have you heard the secret?"

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She says, "What secret?" He said, "Jesus is alive," and she erupts in smile and says, "I know he's alive. "He lives in my heart."

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Last Thursday morning I go to the shopping bag over on Glendale Avenue. There's a frail little fellow behind the counter filling my shopping bag for me.

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He's wearing a badge that says, "PTL," which means, "Praise the Lord." I point to the badge and I say, "There's one way." He smiles and he looks at me and he says, "Jesus is alive!" Up north, Stanford University, a fine and a noted school.

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After you've been accepted as a student at Stanford University, you are sent an application on which there are many questions that you must answer before you are admitted. You've been accepted but not yet admitted,

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and one of the questions on that questionnaire is this. What is the greatest present influence in your life? Last September, and I have verified these facts so I know they are true,

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last September, 35% of the students entering Stanford University answered that question with these two words, "Jesus Christ." Now, Stanford doesn't take dummies.

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And not only that, but the question was, "What is the greatest present reality in your life?" And the answer was, "Jesus Christ." He is, and they know it, alive.

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Michael Green tells us something that happened in Czechoslovakia a year ago. A communist lecturer came from Russia to speak to a great number of students and adults.

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His theme, "Denying the Resurrection of Jesus." He spoke at great length. When he was done, an Orthodox priest asked for the opportunity to respond.

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He said he could respond, but he could only have five minutes. You wonder what he was afraid of, that he would give this man only five minutes after taking such a long time. But the priest got up and said, "I won't need five minutes.

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I'll only need five seconds." And looking out over that great crowd assembled in that room, he said, "Christos Anesti." The two words with which the Orthodox Easter service begins.

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"Christos Anesti." Christ is risen. And immediately there was a roar of response as the whole audience stood up and replied,

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"Olefos Anesti." Truly, he is risen. In lands that are enslaved or in lands that are free, old waitresses and young students,

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boys and girls going to college and boys filling bags in the shopping bag, rich and poor, educated and uneducated, black and white, they have met a living Lord Jesus Christ.

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Because they have met him, they know he is alive. I stand before you this morning and I say, "I know he is alive because I have met him." And when you've met him, you become alive too.

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You discover in the moment of that encounter that Easter is not something which just shines a light into the grave, but rather Easter is something which shines the light of his presence and power

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into every dimension of your life. You think about it for a moment. You feel guilty this morning. I mean, would you like to be the kind of person

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who at the end of the day could go to the calendar, tear off the page, roll it into a ball, and throw it away and forget about it? Have no more anxieties or worries about that day?

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Never have to think again about some of the things that you said that you shouldn't have said or about some of the things that you should have said that you didn't say?

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Are you one of these people who every time you look over your shoulder finds a shadow there? The shadow of the mistakes, the terrible things, or the not so terrible things, but still regrettable things

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that are part of your yesterdays? Are you one of those kind of people? I've got news for you. Jesus climbed up upon a cross and took upon himself

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all of the shadows that chase you, all of the guilt, all of the smudges and smears out of your yesterdays. He took them all and bore them upon himself.

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And after he had borne the pain of them, God took your bill, the bill that has your name on it, and he wrote across it, paid in full. And how do I know he wrote that?

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Because Jesus rose from the dead. Paul said, "If Christ had not risen from the dead, we would still be in our sins, but Christ has risen, and with his rising,

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he defeats guilt. And when he defeats guilt, those who have Christ living in them, and they are living in him, those who are truly alive and know the living reality

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of his presence, they are guilt-free." [bell rings] Please turn your cassette to the other side. [silence]

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Or this morning, as you come here, are you overcome with a sense of weakness? Is that it? Do you have to push harder and harder in your life,

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and yet you don't seem to be getting anywhere, kind of like one of those old clocks that has to be wound up every 24 hours? You're looking for power,

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and yet you don't seem to have power. Is that the difficulty which is yours? Well, remember this. Remember this story of Brant Burbage.

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He was the most decorated flyer in the British Air Force in the Second World War. In his very first battle with the Germans, in his fighter plane,

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some of them in Messerschmitts got behind him and were about ready to shoot him out of the sky. He turned in ever-tighter corners, but he couldn't get away from them.

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He banked so sharply that he toppled his instruments so that it would take them 20 minutes to reset themselves. Now he was not only in danger from his enemies, but also in danger of crashing the aircraft.

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And in this kind of circumstance, he was hit, not with a bullet, but hit with a truth. And that truth was this. If I live, Jesus will be with me.

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If I die, Jesus will be with me. Whether I live or I die, I can give myself an utter abandon to that which is mine because a living Jesus Christ is with me.

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And with that, he pulled out of that spin, won that battle, and went on to make his career in the military and after the military an altogether victorious one.

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Paul, writing to the Corinthians, reminds them of the kind of people they were and then the kind of people that they had become because of Jesus Christ.

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I say the same thing to you this morning. Regardless of how weak you feel, how much without power, if you will come to a living relationship with this Christ,

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you will have all the power you need to live triumphantly in a world that is dying. As you come here this morning, are you burdened with the weight of unhappiness?

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Do you feel kind of broken into pieces inside? Is that the difficulty? Let me tell you about Roger. I met Roger three weeks ago on a college campus in the East.

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He was one of the young people who came in for counseling. And I was immediately impressed with him. Vibrant, alive, exciting, good mind, fine sense of humor, positive faith.

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He wanted to talk to me about the seminary he would go to. And my heart jumped inside of me when I heard that a young man like this was going to be going into the gospel ministry.

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And I was so impressed with this boy that later when I met the college chaplain, I mentioned the boy's name to him and said what a wonderful guy he was.

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And he said, "Let me tell you about Roger." Roger was the youngest of nine children. And ten years ago, before his very eyes, his father murdered his mother.

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And then the father was put into prison and died in prison four years later. And that boy grew up in a town where he was referred to commonly as the murderer's son.

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Now you just think about that for a moment. Think of what it would be like to have your mother murdered before your very eyes, to have your father die in a state penitentiary,

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and then to be known in the town you called home as the murderer's son. Yet that same boy had been sitting in front of me, bright and alive and vital and exciting

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and wondering about which seminary to go to in order to serve the Lord. And he was the way he was, you see. He'd risen above all unhappiness and brokenness

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because he had a living relationship with the living Jesus Christ, the Christ who said, "In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer.

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I have overcome the world, had overcome the world in Roger's life." And he was of good cheer. And you can be too.

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As you come here today, are you without motivation? Is that the difficulty which is yours? You want to make something out of yourself, but you just don't seem to be able to get the drive to do it.

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You're a Mr. or Mrs. Nobody on your way to nowhere, and you know that, and you're trying to get out of that, but there doesn't seem to be a way. Well, let me share something with you.

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Do you know that Christians live longer than other people? That's not a theory. That's a fact. Hundreds and thousands of cases have been examined to arrive at these statistics,

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and it has been shown beyond any shadow of a doubt that people who have an authentic faith and who relate with other people who have an authentic faith will live longer on the average than other individuals.

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And why? Because in their lives they are motivated. In their lives they have things to do and the ability and the desire to do them.

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Who opened up a dark world? Paul and Jesus. Who went into the heart of Africa and turned the key to its door?

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Livingston and Jesus. Who opened Labrador? Grenfell and Jesus. Who started the attack on leprosy?

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Father Damien and Jesus. Who painted the Sistine ceiling? Michelangelo and Jesus. Who built St. Paul's Cathedral?

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Sir Christopher Wren and Jesus. Who pulled the children out of the coal mines? Wilberforce and Jesus. Who wrote the B Minor Mass?

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Johann Sebastian Bach and Jesus. Who gave fire and light to the Civil Rights Movement? Martin Luther King and Jesus. Who invented the light bulb?

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Thomas Edison and Jesus. I've seen children failing in school come into a living relationship with Jesus Christ and go on to become successful in school.

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I have seen men unhappy with their jobs coming into a living relationship with Jesus Christ and going into new work or becoming victorious in the work which is theirs. I've seen movie stars become more than movie stars.

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I've seen good athletes become better athletes after they come to know Jesus Christ. I've seen the sick healed by the power of Jesus Christ. I've seen prostitutes transformed into witnesses.

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I've seen jailbirds made into angels. I've seen alcoholics and narcotics addicts freed. I'm not telling you about things I've read about. I'm telling you about the things that I have seen.

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This is the power which belongs to one who lives in Christ and who has Christ living in him. This isn't something for only two thousand years ago. This is something for now.

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If you are guilty, come to Jesus. If you are weak, live in Christ. If you are unhappy, know the power and the uplifting joy of the Savior. If you are without motivation, come to a Master.

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If you are lonely, open yourselves to Him. No matter what you confront in life, He gives life. No matter what you confront in death, He gives life. For you see, the Christian having this powerful relationship with a living Jesus

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is not only enabled to face this dying world, but also enabled to face the moment of his own dying too. Other people may be afraid of dying, but not the Christian. The Christians are like those Europeans of long ago

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who wanted to find a sea route to India and to China. Voyager after voyager tried to go around that jutting piece of land which is where the Atlantic meets the Indian Oceans. They call that piece of land at that time the Cape of Storms.

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Ship after ship was lost. Life after life was lost. No one thought they would ever make it. And then one brave mariner, Vasto de Gama, did make it. He went all the way to China, and then he came all the way back again.

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And from the day that he made that journey and came back, that cape was no longer called the Cape of Storms, but it was called what it's still called today the Cape of Good Hope. Now we Christians are like those Europeans.

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We wanted someone to go around death, to go through it, to see if there was another land, and to come back and tell us about it. And we have a pilot in Jesus Christ who did just that, and who not only that, but who prepared a place for us,

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and who comes again to receive us unto himself. So that death is for us no longer a place of storms, but a place of good hope. Oh, I wish this morning I could call down the very saints who have already died and gone to be with Him,

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to stand in this pulpit and speak to you. One sentence from their lips, more than ten thousand from my lips. What would they say if they were here? They would tell us of how wonderful it is.

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They would say that every tear is wiped from the eye, that every pain is taken away, that they drink forever from the rivers of God's peace. They would say to those of you who doubt,

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"Jesus is alive, and we are alive in Him." They would say to those of you who are tempted, "Endure, because no matter what pain you confront in enduring, it will seem to you as nothing,

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for the glory you will know in the kingdom of heaven." They say to you who sin, "You can be pardoned." They say to you who are without Christ, "You can know Jesus Christ in a living relationship,

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and you can know that here. You must know that here. The only time in which you can come to Him is in this life. Now, He lives and you live, and you must come together and become one. He is the bridge over troubled waters.

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His hands are extended to you." Yesterday morning, a young man sat in my office and gave himself to Jesus Christ, and as he prayed his prayer, he said,

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"Jesus, give me Your hands. Those hands are extended to you this morning." And if the saints would stand amongst us, they would say, "If you can't take stock in Jesus,

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what in the dying world will you take stock in? If you're not willing to try Him, what in this dying world are you willing to try? Claim Christ.

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Claim victory. Claim life." Listen. Don't you hear them?

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They are here, those saints. We prayed early in this service that they would be with us, and they are here, and they're speaking Your name. Now listen.

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Listen. Isn't someone whom you've loved and who's now gone to be with Jesus, isn't their memory now upon you with power? And can't you hear them saying to you,

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"Don't be destroyed by something which Jesus has already destroyed. Don't surrender to death while you live or when you die, when Jesus Christ is victor over death. As He is alive, so you can be alive."

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And the time to decide for life is now. The time to decide for death and victory over it is now. The time to decide for forever is now. Oh God, lead all of these people into prayer.

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Send Thy Holy Spirit upon them. Let every man or woman, boy or girl in this room who already lives in Thee and knows that Thou art alive because Thou dost live in them,

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let every such one pray for those in this room who do not yet know Thee. And Father, for those who have not yet opened their hearts, at this very moment, not so gently, yet so positively,

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come so powerfully and yet so tenderly, that the gates of their hearts will open and the living reality of a living Lord Jesus will enter in. And now, in the silence, I ask you to pray.

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To pray if you've never prayed it before. Oh Lord Jesus Christ, come, live in me, cleanse me, purify me,

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strengthen me, fill me with the life which is in you so that I need never be afraid of anything on this side of the grave or beyond it.

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Pray that prayer. Pray that prayer now. And the great God who brought again our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead to give you the peace that comes with life everlasting.

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[organ music] [choir singing] [choir singing] [choir singing]