John 5:25-29 Easter 2025

Thank you to our music ministers. You have

your bibles. Or you can look on the screen as

you know

all the verses will be up there on the screen.

Turn with me to John chapter five and verse

number 25.

John chapter five and verse number 25.

Today marks 18 Easter Sundays in a row that I

have been privileged to preach behind a

pulpit as a senior pastor. Two of those were

at Cedar Crest and some of you in this room

were even

here and you've somehow stuck with me all

these years. It's hard for me to describe how

grateful

and undeserving I feel that God allows me this

amazing privilege to be engaged

in the greatest vocation and the most

important work that a man can be engaged in.

And believers don't understand that my job

here is far more important than any president

and any prime minister and any governor and

any congressman in all of human history can

hold.

Then it doesn't matter whether you have a

church of 30 or you have a church of 3000,

you're still doing the same work. And the

reason why this is the most important vocation

in the

world, the most significant vocation in the

world is because what we're dealing with are

matters of

the eternal. We stand before God in judgment,

all of us. Whatever legislation was passed,

whatever legacies presidents have will count

for absolutely nothing.

But what pastors do in being faithful to the

Word of God will carry on for all eternity.

And I've preached the narrative of the most

important event in human history many times,

the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And because

the Bible is an inexhaustible book inspired by

the

author of the resurrection, there are many

ways and many passages to choose from

when you address this subject. And Christy and

Jordan would like for me to preach every

single

Sunday the narrative of the resurrection. Now,

18 years, I've done that a lot of times

and understand where they're coming from. But

today we're going to address the subject of

resurrection from an angle that you might not

very often think about. And that is a stunning

reality that we find in Scripture that most

people don't understand. The overwhelming

biblical fact that every single person at the

end of human history who has ever lived or

died

will rise again, everybody. Wherever the

bodies were laid in death, whether they were

cremated

at the bottom of an ocean or in a grave in a

casket, to whatever degree of corruption

they were then subjected will have absolutely

nothing to do with God's ability

to raise them in a new body that is fit for

their eternal dwelling place because he's God.

And there is nothing that is too hard for him

to do. And what I am telling you is that every

single human being from Adam until the very

last person born on earth, and what I thought

that is,

every person who will be born on this earth

will exist forever.

All the people who think, and there are many

of them, that when we die, that's it.

We're no longer here. We're out of existence.

There's no more consciousness.

Cannot possibly be more mistaken. In fact, all

people, every single person born

is going to go into an eternal existence with

all of their faculties heightened

and intensified to a degree that is absolutely

incomprehensible to us

while we are living out our days on this earth

.

All people will be raised up in a new body

that is fit for either heaven or hell.

There is no in between. There is no purgatory.

There is no astral plane where you become a

ghost.

And once you arrive in either of those two

only possible places, you will again find

yourself

in an existence that you can't even possibly

imagine right now, either way, either place,

and which everyone you wind up in, there you

will stay forever.

And once you've been resurrected, you will

have a body that is designed and suited

either to the eternal service of God Almighty

in his kingdom or a body that is suited

to eternal damnation. And let me be as clear,

as clear as I can.

That sounds crazy to you. If you choose not to

believe those biblical facts

during your short time in this life on earth,

you're not believing it will have absolutely

no

effect whatsoever on the certainty of

everything that I just said coming to pass

exactly as the

Bible makes clear. If you find yourself in

heaven when you die, you will never want to

leave.

You will not want to come back here. If you

find yourself in hell, you will nask your

teeth,

as Jesus himself said, and you won't be

looking to repent. You'll still be in your dep

raved

condition. You'll be cursing God every moment

that you're there with no possibility of

escape,

whatsoever. In Job chapter 14 verse 14, the

question is posed, if a man dies,

will he live again? And the answer comes to us

in Job 19 verse 26. Look at it and 27 there

with me.

Job says, even after my skin is destroyed, in

other words, after his body is decayed,

yet, look at what he says, from my flesh I

shall see God whom I myself shall behold

and whom my eyes will see and not another my

heart faints within me.

So, Job answers the question. Yes, he will

live again. His flesh is corrupted in death,

but yet,

in a new kind of flesh, he will see God and

the reality of that new existence is enough to

make

his heart faint within him, as it will for all

of us. If you die as a Christian,

I believe, especially in that first moment,

your heart will faint within you, but in a

good way,

with reverential fear and awe, fear of God as

a beginning of wisdom. But if you close your

eyes

and death, your heart, if you're lost, will

faint with sheer terror beyond description,

beyond comprehension right now. So, every

human being who dies in human history will be

raised to

have an audience with the living God. Once you

're born into this world, you exist forever.

Now, the text that we have before us today,

here in John 5, I preached at some point last

year,

but I won't be preaching the same sermon on it

today because I want to focus in

on a more detailed way, in a more detailed way

on the subject of resurrection that we do find

in

this text. This chapter starts with Jesus

healing the paralytic man at the pool of Beth

esda. You

remember we went through that last year, and

you will remember the man had been in his

condition

for 38 years, and he believed that superst

ition that if you could just get in the pool

first,

when the angels stirred the water, you'd be

healed. Now, he had been there for many years,

and he'd never been healed, and then one day

Jesus showed up, and he healed the man,

and he told him, "Roll up your mat and walk."

And he did. It was a jaw-dropping miracle,

inescapably obvious to everybody who had been

seeing this man at the pool in his condition

for decades. At this point in the ministry of

Jesus, the Jewish religious leaders were

already

wanting to kill Jesus, but that reality had

kind of been kept under the surface

until this event. And John 5, verse 16, tells

us why. For this reason, the Jews were perse

cuting

Jesus because he was doing these things on the

Sabbath. Now, remember, at this point in

Jewish

history, the religious leaders had created

many false rules for the Sabbath day that were

outside

of Scripture. The Old Testament did say you're

to limit your travel on the Sabbath, but for

sure,

a man who had been healed in a divine miracle

by the God-man could pick up his mat and walk.

But they were so baked into their man-made

rules that they saw this act of healing

as blasphemy on the part of Jesus. Why?

Because you weren't supposed to work on the

Sabbath,

and they considered that work. And then also,

they considered the man carrying his mat work.

That's where they were. So, John 5, 18, we

read this. For this reason, the Jews were

seeking all

the more to kill him because he not only was

breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God

his own Father, making himself equal with God.

And that, of course, was the

ultimate blasphemy because back in John 5, 17,

just one verse before this, he rocked them to

their

core when he said this, "My Father is working

until now, and I myself is working." And what

he was

saying there, and we're going to get more into

that in a moment, but what he's saying there

to

them is the Sabbath doesn't relate to God, and

I'm God. And neither God the Father or God the

Son

are subject to your fabricated rules. Listen,

these religious leaders clearly understood

that

as a claim of Godhood, along with many others

that he made, that he was equal with God

himself.

And that's exactly what it was. The Jews were

never mistaken about Jesus's claim.

There was no one in the crowd that day who

were deniers that Jesus claimed to be God.

They all understood it well. They knew that he

was claiming to be equal with and therefore is

Yahweh, the Creator God of Scripture. And

Jesus always a man amongst boys when he got

with these

Jewish religious leaders, instead of backing

off when they were accusing him of blaspheming

for

claiming to be equal with God. What does he do

? He intensifies. Next, the reality of his

claim,

and he presses it even further to unbelievable

heights. Look with me in verses 19 to 23,

right

after this. "Therefore Jesus answered and was

saying to them, 'Truly, truly I say to you,

the Son can do nothing of himself unless it is

something he sees the Father doing. So

whatever

the Father does, these things the Son also

does. Look at this, in like manner. He does

everything

God does. For the Father loves the Son and

shows him all things that he himself is doing.

And the

Father will show him greater works than these

so that you will marvel." Watch this. "For

just as

the Father raises the dead and gives them life

, even so the Son also gives life to whom he

wishes."

Verse 22, "For not even the Father judges

anyone, but he has given all judgment to the

Son."

Verse 23, "So that all will honor the Son even

and honor the Father. He who does not honor

the Son

does not honor the Father who sent him." Just

in this text is a set of the most incredible

claims

that any man could ever make. And I will say

it again, if you don't understand just out of

that

text that Jesus is claiming to be God, then I

question your ability to read.

The Jewish leaders had already understood that

Jesus was claiming to be equal with God back

in

verse 18. Look at it again in verse 18.

Clearly, look what it states. "Calling God his

own Father,

making himself equal with God." And like the

boss that he is, he goes on from there to ramp

up that

reality in the verses we just read in verses

19 to 23. Understand, he was saying not only

is he one with God in nature and essence, but

he is also one with God in work. And let me

just dig

down on that for you, just see it. Verse 19

again, "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son

can do nothing

of himself unless it is something he sees the

Father doing for whatever the Father does.

Jesus

does these things. The Son also in like manner

." He says, "Everything you see me do

is the work of the Father, is based on the

will and the purpose of God the Father.

So far, he is claiming here to be one with God

in nature and one with God in works." And then

verse 20, "For the Father loves the Son and

shows him all things that he is doing."

Just let the gravitas, the weightiness of that

claim set in on you.

He's clearly saying that he has full knowledge

of everything that God knows.

That's his claim. No man will ever have that

kind of knowledge even in eternity future. We

won't

have exhaustive knowledge of God. We'll be

learning forever the truths of God and it'll

never stop

because he's infinite. There's only one man

that could have the same full knowledge of God

and that

is the God-man, Jesus Christ. So just in this

text so far, he has claimed to the elite

Jewish

religious leaders of the day that he's equal

to God in nature, equal to God in works, and

equal to

God in knowledge and the King of all men is

not done. He adds in verse 20, "And the Father

will

show him greater works than these so that you

will marvel." And what would that be? Well,

just keep reading. Verse 21 and 22, "For just

as the Father raises the dead and gives them

like,

even so, the Son also gives life to whom he

wishes, for not even the Father judges anyone,

but he has given all judgment to the Son." So

just in those two verses, Jesus claims to be

one with

God in power to raise the dead and one with

God in sovereignty to give life to whomever he

wishes.

And that he has been given the right to judge,

oh every human being, only God judges every

human

being. He says, "Not even the Father judges

anyone, but he has given all judgment to the

Son."

And then next, another incredible declaration

in verse 23, "So that all will honor the Son,

even as they honor the Father, he who does not

honor the Son does not honor the Father who

sent him."

I'm telling you with that, those Jewish

leaders' heads were spinning around like

Linda Blair and the Exorcist. I mean, just

what are you saying? How are you saying that

you are equal? I honor you like I honor God?

Those Jewish leaders there, they thought that

they knew God.

They thought that they honored God, but they

didn't.

Jesus is saying, "Because you can't honor God

the Father if you don't honor God the Son

in the exact same way." Is that clear? So let

's keep to count here. Just in this passage so

far,

Jesus is claiming to those Jewish leaders and

for all people for the rest of church history

till the very last day that he is equal to God

in nature, in works, in knowledge, in power,

in sovereignty, in judgment, in authority, and

in honor. He said all of that to them

after they came to the conclusion that he was

claiming to be God back in verse 18.

He added all this after they came to that

conclusion. Now,

all of that was the laying of a foundation for

the main point here today.

Laying the foundation sounds a lot better than

, "Well, that was my introduction." So I say

laying

the foundation. Don't get nervous. You'll

still be somewhat on time for Easter lunch.

Look what Jesus says next to them in verse 24.

"Truly, truly I say to you,

he who hears my word and believes him who sent

me has eternal life and does not come into

judgment,

but has passed out of death into life." That

is the sum of all of it right there. This is

an invitation and it is also a declaration of

fact. Since it is Jesus who has the power to

do

what only God can do, namely raise the dead,

as we just read, and who has the authority

that only God has, namely the authority to

judge everybody as he just finished saying,

and he'll do both, then truly you must hear

his word and believe in God the Father who

sent him

to have eternal life and escape judgment and

not come into judgment of God when you die.

That is the simple reality of gospel truth.

Everybody is born a sinner by nature and we

all

know it. And that means everybody left to

themselves, in and of themselves, is naturally

headed for a resurrection of their body one

day of judgment. And the only possible way to

avoid that

is to hear the word concerning Christ. Faith

comes by hearing and hearing by the word of

Christ. His person is worth repent and believe

, saving faith. It's the only way to escape.

So many want to claim, sadly, TV preachers,

mostly on our airwaves, that the gospel is

really about

all of the benefits that you get in this

earthly life that you receive as a result of

believing

in Jesus. And listen, there are great benefits

in this life that come to you when you believe

.

I mean, just the sense of purpose and meaning

that you know why you're here. You know the

purpose

of life. You know what I mean? People are

searching for purpose and meaning and they run

through all

sorts of hobbies and different things and all

of it is fleeting because there's only one

true sense

of purpose and meaning that you can have in

life. And that is when you come into union

with Christ,

then there's peace and joy and contentment.

Even during the hardest trials of life,

the peace that passes all understanding. But

the primary reason for salvation is not to

bring you

bliss in this life. Remember what John Mac

Arthur said in response to Joe Osteen's best

selling book?

If this is your best life now, you're on your

way to hell.

And this really is your best life that you're

ever going to get.

And even though believers do have gospel

benefits, every believer in this room knows we

have them

as we are fighting a daily struggle with the

world, the flesh and the devil. And we know

for sure

this will never be our best life right here

ever. As my brother David Miller used to say,

your best life is yet to come and your inner

man belongs to be there.

The primary reality that the gospel brings you

is an escape from real eternal judgment.

That every single one of us knows that we

deserve. And King Jesus, the God man,

the only one who can save you, he's either

going to be your savior or your judge.

He's claiming here that he himself will raise

you in the final resurrection

to eternal life in his presence, or he will

raise you to condemn nation forever in

judgment

and the place that he talks about more than

any other person in the Bible. Jesus talks

about hell

more than any other person in the Bible. So I

can't possibly overemphasize the shock of

these words

that Jesus said to these Jewish leaders that

day. And incredibly, as we have seen,

instead of backing down from what they

perceived as blasphemy, he escalates it

to a point to the likes of which they could

never imagine that he would say such things.

So again, he makes clear in verses 21 and 22

that he raises the dead, he gives them life,

and he is the judge. Those are things that

only God can do, the power to raise the dead,

and the authority to judge. That's his claim,

but he's not done.

The same conversation is continuing and gets

more intense in verses 25 to 29.

Look at these with me. Truly, truly, I say to

you, an hour is coming and now is when the

dead

will hear the voice of the Son of God and

those who here will live for just as the

Father has life

in himself, even so, he gave to the Son also

to have life in himself. Remember the fact

that he

has life in himself means that he's self-exist

ent. He has life in himself. Everybody else is

given

life by God, but the Son here is claiming he

has life in himself just as God the Father,

because he's the second person of the Trinity.

Verse 27, "And he gave him authority to

execute

judgment, because he is the Son of man." Do

not marvel at this, for an hour is coming in

which

all who are in the tombs will hear his voice,

Jesus' voice, and will come forth those who

did

the good deeds to a resurrection of life and

those who committed the evil deeds to a

resurrection

of judgment. Now, there is a lot there, so I

can only just drill down to stay with my main

point

here, okay? Clearly, this passage is teaching

us that everybody is going to be raised from

the dead,

resurrected. Everybody who has ever or will

ever live and die in human history,

and Jesus says, "Don't marvel at this." Why

does he say that? Because it's so shocking

for those guys to hear. Religion was their

business, okay? Now, for time's sake,

I could probably preach five messages out of

that text, but for time's sake, I want to hit

a couple of points in Jesus' word here,

because I want to make sure that everybody in

this worship

service here today does not walk out of here

in confusion at all, okay? I want you to all

be

very clear, because there's two aspects to

resurrection that Jesus is talking about in

these verses, okay? So, let's drill down on

this for a second. Verse 25, "An hour is

coming and now

is when the dead will hear the voice of the

Son of God and those who hear will live." Now,

think about it.

As Jesus spoke these words, and even today,

where we sit right now here on Puppa Road,

the final resurrection of the dead, of all the

dead, is yet to come, right? It hadn't

happened yet.

So, when he says, "An hour is coming," look at

that next phrase, "and now is,"

he's speaking to them present tense, "when the

dead will hear the voice of the Son of God

and those who hear will live." What does he

mean by that? Here, he's talking about

spiritual resurrection.

First, look at the phrase again in verse 25, "

now is." Right then at that moment, understand,

even during the ministry of Jesus, he was

giving spiritual life to people. He was saving

people,

which as we know, raises people from being

naturally spiritually dead to spiritually

alive.

Remember when Jesus said in Matthew, "Let the

dead bury their dead." You know what he was

saying?

He was saying, "Let the spiritually dead bury

the physically dead." We all arrive in this

world,

descendants of Adam, spiritually dead on

arrival, right? And only Christ can make us

spiritually

alive, and he was doing this during his

ministry. As he was speaking to these Jews, I

'm not going

to go into detail, but a couple examples. The

woman at the well. We studied her last year,

all the people in the town that she was

involved with in Samaria. I mean, I can go all

the way back

to Abraham in the Old Testament, long before

the cross, Romans 4-3, Paul quotes Genesis 15

for

what the scripture say, "Abraham believed God

and it was credited to him as righteousness."

Now,

listen carefully, all the people before the

cross in time and before the resurrection

believed in

what God had revealed up to that point. You

understand? And God acquainted that kind of

faith

as the saving faith that embraced divine

righteousness. The same salvation by grace

alone through faith alone in Christ alone has

always existed all the way back to Old

Testament

time. So make sure you get your bearing

straight here, but now after the cross,

if you confess Jesus as Lord and believe in

your heart that God raised him from the dead,

you will be saved. That's on this side of the

cross, where we are now, believing in all the

components of the gospel. But before that, it

was a manner of all that, believing in all

that Jesus

had, God had revealed, including coming of

Messiah, right? Now go back to verse 25. That

's the now is.

But Jesus is making people alive before the

cross, but he also says in that verse,

"But an hour is coming when the dead will hear

the voice of the Son of God and those who hear

will live." So as Jesus was standing there

that day, what was coming? Well, what was

coming was

the cross and the resurrection. An hour was

coming when an amazing sweeping response to

the cross

and the resurrection would turn the whole

world upside down and still does worldwide to

this day.

What was coming was the birth of the New

Testament church, the preaching of the gospel,

the fulfillment of hundreds of prophecies out

of the Old Testament concerning how

God would act to be both the just and the just

ifier of them that believe in Jesus.

So Jesus here is talking about raising the

naturally spiritually dead to spiritual life.

Remember Ephesians 2, 4 to 5, "But God, being

rich in mercy, because of his great love with

which he loved us, even when we were what?

Dead in our transgressions made us alive

together with

Christ by grace you have been saved." And how

did this happen? Go back to John 5, 25. And

now

you understand John 25, 25, I hope a little

better. "An hour is coming and now is when the

dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and

those who here will live." So now you get that

a

little better, I hope. It's the voice of the

Son of God. You remember what Jesus said in

John 10,

27? "My sheep hear my voice and I know them

and they follow me. Only Christ can speak life

into

the spiritually dead through the regenerating

power of the Holy Spirit." This is the new

birth.

This is regeneration. And look, he's given the

title. And remember, Son of God is a title

that

is given. It means he's the same nature and

essence as God because only God can give life.

Only God is the source of life. But guess what

? Jesus is not done giving these Jewish

religious

leaders of the day. Maximum apoplexy. We're

really fixing to kick in here. You have verse

26.

Now we're getting down to the nitty-gritty.

And what I want you to see here, okay, on this

Easter

Sunday, verse 26 and 27, "For just as the

Father has life in himself, even so he gave to

the Son

also to have life in himself and he gave

authority to execute judgment because he is

the Son of Man."

Now watch this. In verse 25, Jesus has given

the title Son of God because it takes God and

God only

to give life. But here in verse 27, he's given

the title Son of Man. And that's the favorite

title that he refers to himself as in all the

New Testament. But Son of Man is because in

his

incarnation as a man, he can also sit in

judgment on man as he was tempted in all

points as like

are we when he was here and yet without sin as

our substitute. So that's why you have Son of

God

and then Son of Man. So as the God man, he has

the authority to execute judgment upon every

person

who has ever or will ever live. And that takes

us to, as Rush Limbaugh used to say, the pi

èce des

résistances. Verse 28, Jesus says, "Do not

marvel at this, for an hour is coming in which

all who are

in the tombs will hear his voice." That's

Jesus. "And will come forth those who did the

good deeds

to a resurrection of life, those who committed

evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment." And

now we move from spiritual resurrection in

this text to physical resurrection. This is

everybody

comes out of the grave. And would you notice

in verse 29 that everybody is judged by their

deeds?

But brother Philip, you constantly tell us

that salvation is by grace through faith alone

, not

out of works, lest any man should boast. That

's true. And on the one hand when we believe we

are

judged by the works of Jesus living a perfect

sinless life as our substitute and that

perfect

righteousness that he attained is put on our

account when we believe and we are justified

just as if we had never sinned. But here in

verse 29, look what it says carefully,

"Those who did the good deeds to a

resurrection of life are those who have

believed," and guess

what? "The validation that their saving faith

was real are the true God-glorifying good

works

that validate the fruit." Remember Ephesians 2

, verse 10, "For we are his workmanship created

in Christ Jesus," what? "For good works which

God prepared beforehand so that we would walk

in them."

Our glorifying good works don't save us. They

are the necessary result of the reality that

we have been saved. Keep that in between the

ditches and go back to John 5, 28, the first

part of 29.

That incredible phrase, "All who are in the

tombs will hear his voice and will come for

the power that Jesus has to do this," is so

stunning and incomprehensible that we can

fully wrap our minds around it. And his voice,

every dead body in all human history will come

forth.

Only God can resurrect every human being who

has ever lived with a new body. And look, I

can't go

beyond what God is revealing to us here in

Scripture to borrow from Luther. That is

neither

right nor safe. When we talk about resurrected

bodies, it is an actual body. And if I use the

word physical, it's the only word my little

pea brain can use. I mean, Jesus, in his glor

ified

resurrected body, which is a body just like we

're going to have, he walked, he talked, he ate

fish,

but he also walked through a wall. So I can't

get you exactly to it, okay? But I do know

this,

that that glorified body will be designed and

fit by God for existence either in heaven or

hell

forever. I do know that. This is where the

world is headed, church. It is amazing to

think of how

oddly people, so many people, think about the

end of their life. And mainly, they don't

think about

it at all, really hardly ever. Since I became

a Christian over the years, I've always found

the

week leading up to Easter Sunday, fascinating

to hear people during the week ask each other.

What are y'all doing for Easter? And in those

plans, the answer for many people,

there's no church involved. It's, we're

getting together. I have pot roast with sides,

like it's just another holiday that we deserve

when it's really the most important event in

human

history. If Christ did not come out of that

grave alive after being most certainly dead,

then Christianity is a lie. Jesus is not God,

and the faith implodes in on itself. I want

nothing

to do with it. Eat, drink, and be merry,

because tomorrow you die. Paul said in 1

Corinthians 15,

12 through 14. Now, if Christ has preached

that he has been raised from the dead, how do

some among

you say there is not resurrection of the dead?

He was dealing in Corinth there with those who

said,

okay, Jesus was resurrected, but all of us

aren't going to be resurrected. Paul goes on,

but if there is no resurrection of the dead

for all of us, not even Christ is raised.

And if Christ has not been raised, then our

preaching is in vain, and your faith also is

in

vain. And that would be true if Jesus didn't

walk out of that grave on the first Easter

Sunday,

and if there is not going to be the

resurrection of every single human being who

has ever lived.

But Jesus himself has told us, go back to John

5, 28, and 29, do not marvel at this for an

hour

is coming in which all who are in the tombs

will hear his voice, verse 29, and will come

forth.

That takes me to what I'm going to leave you

with in this message here on this beautiful

resurrection Sunday. Here, I'm going to take

you to the scene

of the end of human history, Revelation

chapter 20, verse 11 to 15.

John says, "Then I saw a great white throne,

and him who sat upon it, from whose presence

earth and heaven led away, and no place

was found for them." Can you imagine that? You

can't. And I saw the dead,

the great and the small, standing before the

throne, and the books were opened. And another

book was opened, which is the Book of Life,

and the dead were judged from the things which

were written in the books according to their

deeds. And the sea gave up the dead, which

were in it,

and death and Hades gave up the dead, which

were in them. They were judged every one of

them,

according to their deeds. Then death and Hades

were thrown into the lake of fire. And if

anyone's

name was not found written in the Book of Life

, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

If you came here today, expecting to hear from

the "he gets us" Jesus from the Superbowl Ads,

who tiptoed through the tulips of Galilee,

giving life coach morality lessons, you came

to the wrong

place. At this church, we only hear the voice

of the biblical Jesus. That's the only Jesus

that

exists from His Word alone. And as we have

learned today, He has the power to raise the

dead.

He has the power to give life. He has the

authority to judge. That's only things that

God can do. And if you haven't already today,

repent and believe His Gospel before it's ever

lastingly too late. Whoever has ears to hear,

hear the Word of the Lord this day. Let's pray

.

Father in heaven, we thank you

that your grace is sovereign, that it is unmer

ited favor toward us who do not deserve

anything from you but wrath, and how we thank

you that you have made a way

whereby our sins are forgiven and the

righteousness of Christ is placed on our

account

so that when we close our eyes in death, we

are safe from your wrath that we deserve.

We give you glory today for the empty tomb. We

give you glory today for Christ.

I pray you would take the words of your book

today and apply them to every heart and mind.

Jesus' name I pray. Amen.