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00:03 Okay, good afternoon. So, I want to wish everybody a blessed
00:10 Easter today as we gather to celebrate the most momentous occasion in the
00:17 history of the world, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Uh we're going to look at one
00:25 Corinthians chapter 15. Let's start with a word of prayer. Lord, we ask that you speak to us this day. That this message
00:30 from Paul will personally be directed to each of our hearts. That the words will
00:36 sink in. That the words will cause transformation. As these words are not just words, they come from your holy
00:42 spirit. We ask for Jesus' sake. Amen. With your um
00:48 brochures in front, you will see a blank piece of paper. Can you take that out,
00:53 please? Blank piece of paper. And can you fold the blank piece of paper into two? Fold
01:01 it into two. So there's a It's like a book. Okay. Got it. Right. So Katherine,
01:07 you got it. All right. The front page, put your name right now. Put your name.
01:15 Got a pen? Borrow from a friend? If you don't have a pen, imagine your name there.
01:21 And next to your name, a bit sensitive to the ladies, put the year you were born.
01:28 Oh, I'm trying to get you into the mood of Christ or Easter. If you don't do this,
01:34 you won't understand the sermon. You won't realize how beautiful Easter is. Put your name and the year you were
01:42 born. Okay, got that? Very easy. Then you turn the book into the first page or
01:49 the inset. Okay, not the last page, the first page on the inset. I want you to add 80 to
01:56 the year you were born. If you're a woman, plus two. If you're a man, minus two. If
02:06 you smoke, minus 10. Okay, we done the math,
02:11 right? How many of you is the number greater than 2030?
02:17 Put your hands up. Wow. Only one. That means how many of
02:23 you will be alive after 2030?
02:28 Yeah. Right. Some of you the date is already passed and you are still alive.
02:36 So that's called bonus. Now if you take this booklet, this first
02:42 page represents your life. Now there a lot of authors
02:47 and writers who basically uh focus on your best life. Now the tendency of
02:53 modern Christians especially in a KL affluent area is you focus on your best
02:59 life now. You found the truth in Jesus Christ and then you preserve your life. You make sure you don't take too many
03:05 risks. You stay in a good suburb. You earn good money and you don't take any adventures for the gospel because your
03:11 best life is supposed to be now, isn't it? Now you've got Christ. You've got your job, you've got your retirement,
03:16 you got your children, your best life is now. And most of these people very because they got to preserve their best
03:22 life now. You can either live your life based on the fact that your best life
03:28 now or something else. You so many authors write the power of now. But I'm
03:34 going to tell you that this is not the way to live. If your best life is now,
03:39 then you're in big trouble. If all you have is now, then you're in deep deep trouble. Some of you born
03:46 here, never mind if you're born in Somalia, for example, and and and you going to tell me the best life is now. Your father's a pirate and you could
03:53 have earned your living by robbing some people. So certainly your life best life can't be now. The best life is not now.
03:60 The Bible tells you flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Nor does perishable
04:07 inherit the imperishable or mortal the immortal. Behold, I tell you a mystery.
04:12 We shall not all sleep. We shall all be changed. In a minute, in a moment, the twinkling of an eye and last trumpet,
04:17 for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised and the imperishable. We shall be changed. There is a change
04:25 coming. The divers off the Australian coast recently noted that the Great
04:30 Barrier Reef, twothirds of the reef have already been bleached white. The change is coming all over the world.
04:38 Whether they're earthquake, natural disaster, global warming, there is a change that is coming. And I tell you
04:44 brothers, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor the perishable inherit the imperishable. The change is
04:51 coming. And you need to be ready for the change. There's an incompatibility. Our bodies are incompatible with the kingdom
04:58 of God. The kingdom of God is going to come whether you like it or whether you like
05:03 it or not. It's like a tsunami going to come. And when it comes, you've got to
05:09 be in a state to be able to take that. It is so it is with the resurrection of
05:15 the dead. What is sown is perishable. What is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor. Is raised in glory. It
05:21 is sown in weakness. Is raised in power. It is swn in a natural body. was raised a a super a spiritual body. If there's a
05:29 natural body, there's also a spiritual body. What is now that we have in our
05:34 body today is perishable, dishonor, weak, natural. It doesn't fit the world
05:41 that is going to come. For many of the scientists, they're thinking this world will continue forever. It won't. And so
05:46 therefore, even you look at the science of global warming, they're looking for new planets. They just found seven
05:52 Earthlike planets orbiting in a star nearby. Maybe we could hit a ride there. Maybe we could have our lives changed,
05:58 start again without the global warming. We'll leave all the bad people around here and we'll go off and start a new
06:04 world. Yes, if you can live 39 million light years away, that's a long way. You
06:10 want to travel there, you won't live long enough, even for the stars. The world's greatest explorer is Seralno
06:18 Fines. He's the only fellow who actually has circumnavigated the globe north pole
06:24 to south pole. He is the only fellow who has actually been able to
06:31 run. He had a heart attack. Okay, heart attack. And four months after his heart
06:36 attack with bypass surgery, he runs seven marathons in seven days on seven different continents.
06:42 He belonged to the uh British SAS. He trained the army of Onan. He discovered
06:48 lost cities. He actually walked across the Antarctica, the entire continent of
06:53 Antarctica in 93 days in 1993. Amazing gentleman. In 1971,
07:01 he ran 156 kilometer marathon in the Sahara Desert.
07:07 They asked him, "Sir Ralph Reno Fines, what is your greatest ambition?" My
07:13 greatest ambition is to have a younger body because he can't do the stuff that
07:19 he wants. He wants to climb mountains. He wants to go to the greatest stars, furthest flung star in the universe.
07:24 He's got that in his heart. But his body can't take the vision that is pounding
07:30 inside his heart. This is this was the oldest woman in the world as of seven
07:38 hours ago. Her name is Emma Morano. lives in Italy, 117 years of age. And
07:47 for those of you who love eggs, she eats three eggs a day for much of her life. And lately, a few years, it's been two
07:53 eggs a day, one raw and one cooked. And she's still alive. She passed away about
07:59 few hours ago. And she was trapped in her apartment for the last 20 years.
08:05 Couldn't get out the frailty of her body. See, our bodies are mortal. Our hearts
08:13 as it were immortal. We we earn and yearn to live and experience more and more things. I recently came across this
08:20 burger. The moment I looked at this burger, I'll tell you where to find this in Melbourne.
08:26 You wish you had a bigger mouth, right? Absolutely. You look at it and you wish
08:32 you had a bigger mouth and suddenly your mortality dawns upon you. I wish I could have a bigger mouth. Look at the I one
08:39 goal, right? For example, if you take this burger and this burger and you put it next to each other,
08:46 how many of you would like to eat this one on the left? Put your hands up. Okay. Which is better value? What about
08:53 this one on the right? Put your hands up. Oh, these people are cleverer. This one cost 16 $34,000 in Abu Dhabi. This
09:01 one cost 67. Some of you are cheap skates. But if I put a blindfold over you, do
09:09 you think you can tell the difference between a $34,000 burger and a $67,000 $67 burger? After the second bite, you
09:16 cannot tell the difference. You could put gold or you could put truffle inside, but you probably won't unless
09:23 you're a master chef or something. All right. So, so we only have five senses, isn't it? Touch, sense, smell, sight.
09:30 Imagine a world where that's going to come where we will actually have greater than five senses. The problem is aging.
09:39 Aubry Gay who does a lot of research in aging says aging is a kind of uber disease that incorporates other diseases
09:44 like Alzheimer's, breast cancer, cardiovascular disease that predominantly affect the elderly. As you
09:50 grow older, it's our DNA that gets broken down bit by bit by bit and
09:55 sometimes you're not able to repair it. And because you cannot repair it, you
10:00 will ultimately succumb to diseases. Aging is the ultimate disease. Even if
10:06 you didn't get any disease, your body wears down. Your muscles and your heart
10:11 are replaced by collagen. You know why older people are so cool. You know,
10:17 younger people are excitable jumpy. Older you are get cooler. You know why? Because we don't respond to no
10:22 adrenaline adrenaline very much. The same amount injected. Some people we jumping up. We we can't respond. We're
10:28 all tired and burnt out as it were. A lot of our muscles are going down. Our testosterone is going down. Um, aging is
10:35 the ultimate disease. If it's a best life now, then this is your picture,
10:41 isn't it? All right. You're in your diapers. You're cool because you wear
10:47 dark glasses. And you think that the first page in the book that you have is
10:52 all there is in life. And it's your best life now. And you laugh because this is
10:58 not his best life. Now imagine the rest of your life looking like that. There is a life beyond that. The best life is yet
11:06 to come. Right in a moment, the twinkling of an eye, a last trumpet, the
11:12 trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable. And we shall all be
11:17 changed. There will be a change. This change is inevitable. It doesn't matter
11:22 whether you're Christian, Buddhist, Hindu or agnostic or atheist. Do you know that the dead will be raised?
11:30 Every single person will be raised. There's a change coming that nobody can avoid and everybody will be changed. But
11:37 the Corinthians asked the question, someone will ask how are the dead raised? What kind of body will they come
11:44 on? Do will they look like kangaroos or they going to look ephemereral like the story called the movie called uh a
11:50 ghost? you come and it's sort of sort of transparent. Okay. Um well, people have
11:55 different ideas. If you go to Yorkshire in the 16th century, a little village there called Waram Percy, the people
12:02 there actually believe in the resurrection of the dead. And so what they do, they found bones there with a
12:08 lot of straight edges here. They're all cut. You know why they're cut? Because they're afraid that when these people
12:15 resurrected, it' be like a living dead come and cut out you. So therefore, they chop chop chop chop chop. sure that they will not be reconstituted. So people
12:22 don't believe that that they believe that that that you come back you come back in your same bodies. But then again
12:27 one of the greatest skept American skeptics called Robert Ingresol Green wrote if we get atoms to support our
12:34 bodies from what we eat. Now if a cannibal eats a certain missionary and a certain atoms belong to the missionary
12:40 should be used to by the cannibal in his body and the cannibal should then die where the atoms of the missionary form
12:45 part of his flesh. To whom should these atoms belong on the morning of resurrection? So when a cannibal eats a
12:52 missionary, part of the atoms of the missionary become part of his atoms. When you all rise from the dead, how
12:58 shall we share those atoms? So he's this resurrection business is rubbish. It
13:03 cannot be true. Now Paul answers this in three points in Corinthians. The first
13:10 thing he says is that you foolish person, what you sow doesn't come to
13:15 life unless it dies. What you sow is not the body that is to be but a bare kernel
13:21 perhaps a wheat or some other grain but God has gives it a body he has chosen and to each seed its own kind. So
13:29 therefore what you put inside the grave has little resemblance to what comes
13:35 out. Don't you see a seed? There's some discontinuity and yet there's a continuity. Look at a
13:43 famous footballer recently. He had somebody do a bust of him, right?
13:48 Can you see there is some discontinuity? The whole world laughs at him and this.
13:53 I mean, there's no way he looks like this. There's some discontinuity. In fact, it looks worse. If resurrection
13:60 body looks like that, I I don't want to be resurrected. But if you look very closely there's
14:05 some continuity isn't there. Look at the jaw there look at the eyes been you know this you know resurrection is like that
14:12 that there's a discontinuity where the seed completely does not look like the tree because what you sow is not the
14:20 body that's that is to be but a bare kernel perhaps of wheat or some other gra. So it doesn't matter about the atoms. How many of these atoms will
14:26 become part of this atoms? That's not the question. We can be sold a bear
14:32 kernel, perishable, dirty, puny, it looks like this. But when you come out, it's completely different to what you
14:39 ordinarily look like. So there are some of you who are butt ugly like me. Hey, you got a hope in life, right? I come
14:46 back, I will look better than Robert Redford. You know, that's for sure. I can
14:51 guarantee you I'm going to look better than Robert Redford. Okay? If not, I give you money back. All right? I am
14:57 absolutely sure because the Bible tells me what is put in is a kernel. It's nothing. It's like a drop of nothing.
15:04 All right. And then there is some continuity because the Bible says but
15:10 God gives it a body as he has chosen and to each seed its own body. So when you
15:16 plant a mango seed, do you think it'll come out of a papaya tree? When you plant a papaya seed, do you think it
15:22 come out a durian tree? You won't. there's some continuity. We look at it.
15:27 So actually when you meet that person who's resurrected one day we see Walter, it'll be a huge Walter 15 stories high.
15:35 But the moment Walter opens his mouth, you alter Walter, right? Same thing with
15:42 the disciples who were walking on Emirus's road and they actually met Jesus. They didn't really recognize him
15:48 at all. A man who spent 12, three years with them, they don't even recognize him. But when they broke the bread,
15:55 there was something familiar and they instantly recognized. So there's some discontinuity and there's some
16:02 continuity involved in this. Second point Paul makes is that God makes
16:09 different bodies with respective glories. For not all flesh is the same. There's a one kind for the humans,
16:15 another for animals, another for birds, another for fish. There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies. But the glory
16:20 of the heavenly is for one kind and the glory of the earth is for another. There's one glory for the sun, one glory
16:26 for the moon, another glory for the stars. For the stars differ from the star in glory, which means the glory the
16:31 beauty for which we see a peacock and the beauty of a sunset of a sun or a
16:36 moon or or the the rings of Saturn. You don't see the rings of Saturn on on our
16:42 moon. Each one has a different glory. And so therefore, if you look at these
16:47 two, you don't expect this one to bark and this one to cry, would you? Because
16:53 each one has its own glory. And the point Paul is making is that God makes
16:59 each one with its own glory. So why is it so impossible for you to believe that
17:04 the same God who makes the baby and the dog, the baby to cry, the dog to bark
17:09 cannot make a human body which frail and will ultimately disintegrate and a
17:15 spiritual body in the next phase. The difference between the caterpillar and the butterfly. God makes the caterpillar
17:22 in its glory and the butterfly in its glory too. The same God makes both. And
17:29 you don't believe in resurrection. Doesn't make sense. Let's look next one.
17:35 So it is with the and a new what you know what comes out? What is sown is perishable. What is raised is
17:40 imperishable. It's glorious. It's in power and it's a spiritual body. We
17:45 don't know what a spiritual body in our eyes. Spiritual means like ghost. People walk right through you. People see right
17:52 through you. No is a physical body. It's full of glory and it's full of power.
17:58 Maybe you can leap tall buildings with a single bound. We don't know. But Jesus actually was able to go through walls.
18:04 All right? And yet there's some continuity because you could recognize him in his voice and you could touch the
18:10 scar at his side and on his nail torn hands. Jesus is the prototype of the
18:17 spiritual body. Thus is written the first Adam became a living being and the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
18:23 But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural and then the spiritual. The first man was from the
18:28 earth, a man of dust. The second was from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust. As
18:35 is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we are born the image of the man of dust, we shall
18:40 bear the image of the man of heaven. It's very simple. Just as you are born in the likeness of Adam or your father,
18:48 just as he lives, he dies, is buried, goes back into the dust. So Jesus comes
18:53 from heaven. He is the man who gives you life and spirit. Just as Jesus lived and
19:00 died and rose again, we shall be like him. There is a paradigm. When he rose
19:05 that Easter morning, he broke the mold. He started a new line of humanity. Um
19:13 there are people who will argue with you and say that the resurrection did not occur. The entire weight of the
19:19 Christian faith hangs on this one. It is a resurrection of Jesus Christ.
19:26 And then a lot of New Testament scholars will argue back and forth. Just like if you go to a accident, no two witnesses
19:34 will tell the same thing. No, he was wearing red dress. No, brown dress, you drown, you know, with dark glasses. No dark glasses. You could argue a lot of
19:40 things because you see an accident from different perspective. But the fact is there are certain things you cannot run.
19:46 Accident happened. Somebody died. Which road it was? These things we can agree
19:53 75% of New Testament scholars, not all, 75% and they can be non-Christian scholars, they only agree
20:00 on four minimum facts. All right, the first fact is that he was
20:05 buried and the tomb of Joseph Arythea who is basically a member of Sanhedrin,
20:11 the same Sanhedrin who condemned him to die. Very unlikely, but he was buried there. Second of all, the tomb is empty.
20:17 Nobody till now has found a tomb that's full of Jesus' bones as then as is now.
20:23 Third of all, there's postresurrection appearances to all the disciples. Paul
20:28 writes to 500 disciples, men. On top of that, what about the children and all that? It could be far more than 500
20:35 individual appearances at different times. And lastly, the changed life of
20:40 the disciples who are so energized, so emboldened, so invigorated by this
20:46 vision that breaks the mold that they too could follow and their lives change. And you can see the history of the world, Christianity is the most the
20:52 widest held belief on the face of this earth. It's not it is not Islam. It is
20:58 Christianity. So on upon these four pillars rest resurrections. So anytime you have people who try to refute this,
21:06 they have to answer these four things. Suppose you say that Jesus didn't rise
21:11 from the dead. The disciples stole his body. If they stole his body, then the
21:17 problem is how are you going to account for the post-resurrection appearances? If they stole his body, why would their
21:23 lives be changed? Because they're actually keeping the rotting body. Only the resurrection can explain these
21:28 four points. If you say that they were hallucinating,
21:34 500 people all had hallucination at the same time or at different times hysteria
21:40 we call it. If that's the case, then all you have to do is go back to the empty tomb, right? And find the rotting body
21:46 of Jesus. So hallucination cannot explain these four points together. All
21:52 right? Suppose you say the authority stole the body. If they stole the body,
21:59 the tomb will be empty. The burial site will be there. But how do you pound for
22:04 Jesus coming out as this escape? You know, authorities send 15 Toyota trucks with black clad people and they grab the
22:12 body and they hijacked it away and then suddenly uh uh Jesus can appear and the
22:17 lives will be changed. All the authorities have to do is to show the body again and there goes your faith
22:24 finished capitulated. What if
22:30 Jesus had a twin brother? Oh, the twin theory. This came from Syria. It's an
22:36 actual theory. They came from Syria. The Syrian people believe that Jesus had twin brother and the twin brother comes
22:42 in. But the twin brother who comes in, how would you explain him in terms of the post-resurrection appearances? They
22:49 would certainly have some idea that this is a Jesus who is powerful and
22:54 supernatural can walk through walls and that's why you'll die for him. Right? You won't have a younger brother come in
22:59 that looks like Jesus, smells like Jesus, talks like Jesus and then dies few years later on and then their lives won't be changed. Right? What if you
23:08 have Jesus had they went to the wrong grave, buried wrong place, went to wrong
23:13 Sabbath, didn't have ways and went to the wrong place. If you went to the wrong place, then how could you explain
23:20 post-resurrection experiences? And how would you explain changed lives? So every one of these theories that people
23:27 bring up cannot explain the four facts. The four facts of the accident that happened, you cannot explain. Lastly,
23:34 you have the people who believe of the resuscitation theory. Poor Jesus
23:39 hammered onto the onto the tree exfiated to die and make sure he dies.
23:46 the professional execution shoved a huge spear to his side. All his blood pours out. He's sanguinated basically and then
23:53 he lies in the cool tomb for another two days or three days and he recovers without cardio version without
23:59 adrenaline within you know all this thing. He recovers, kick down the door. You know, it is a stone door, overpowers
24:07 the Roman guard, and then he appears to all the disciples and they say, "Hey, Jesus, you're really
24:13 cool. You know, all this blood pouring out and all that and say, "Oh, we want to be like you. Do you want to be like
24:19 him, barely alive?" You see, at every turn, you cannot account for the for all
24:27 four things. There's only one theory that accounts for all four things. That Jesus died, was buried, and he rose
24:35 again. Only one thing can do that. So if that's the case, just as Jesus died and
24:41 rose again, we too shall die and rise again. The third point is that your best
24:47 life is only possible if we deal with the problem of death. The whole problem of Easter is the problem of death. We
24:55 have to deal with death. Corinthians says when the perishable puts on the imperishable then the mortal puts on
25:01 immortality. Then shall come to pass the saying it is written in Isaiah is swallowed up in victory oh death where
25:09 is your victory oh death where is your sting the sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law. This is the
25:17 issue we are not used to images of death. We do not talk about death. This
25:22 is death art which is very common 200 years ago. People used to paint about
25:27 death. People were quite cool with death in those days. In 200 years ago, when you talk about death, people think it's
25:34 okay. You talk about sex, they think it's pornography, they lock you up. Today, you talk about death, they think it's pornography, you talk about sex,
25:40 they won't lock you up. They lock you up when you talk about death. When people die in a shooting, they're so unus to
25:46 death that they have to have death counselors. You know, a lot of counselors come and counsel you that
25:51 actually people do die. You know the reason why is that child mortality
25:57 in 1800s to now child mortality was one in two one in two children used to die
26:03 before the age of five and because the child mortality rate has dropped so far down you don't see the death I had was a
26:11 a Somalian patient who came to me just three weeks ago I just asked him casually you know your son has brought
26:17 you such a nice son how many sons do you have oh yeah I got I got nine uh But you
26:22 know only three are alive. I said only three are alive because in Somalia it's like in 1800s half your children die
26:28 before the age of five. So death is common with them but we struggle isn't
26:34 it? We struggle with this idea that we want to live and yet we're faced with the problem of death.
26:40 You see entire civilizations are actually built as a defense mechanism against the terror of death. This work
26:47 done by uh uh and Ernest Becker and Sigman Freud they say whole generation
26:52 is called terror management because we're all terrified to die and because we're terrified to die we construct all
26:59 sorts of things to insulate ourselves with that we deny death we run away from death we want to talk about death try
27:04 going to a traditional Chinese family and then sit down there hey I talk about death
27:09 they'll kick you out if you're African visiting Malaysian uh family when you sit down there never talk about F the
27:17 woman will call soy soy so soy and then kick you out. All right. This is How many of you liked this show some years
27:23 ago called Golden Girls? Put your hands up. Yeah, a couple of you only. Right. I
27:28 never liked it. You know why? Because it's about all girls.
27:34 Nobody likes to watch movie old people like or Golden Pond. If you had the earlier version like Golden Girls early
27:40 years, I'll watch if they were wearing a bikini or something, right? But we don't like to watch old people because old
27:46 people remind you of what? Death. Younger people, would you watch the Avengers if you look like that? Or
27:53 Wonder Woman is coming next week. It's looking like that. We don't because it reminds us of death.
28:00 And as Ernest Becker say, we deny death. We run away from death. We are afraid of death. We're terrified about we cover
28:06 about death. We like to look into the mirror. Some people tell me, you know,
28:11 age is just a number. That patient came and saw me who saw me 20 years ago last week and you got a
28:17 shock. Look at my hair. It's all white. You can tell you tell yourself age is
28:23 just a number. But you got to change the color of your hair. Every day when you look in the mirror that does the hair get white uh whiter or blacker. It's
28:30 whiter unless you dye it. You cannot escape. It is inevitable. There was a
28:37 lady called Sarah Winchester who is a wife of the man who invented the Winchester rifle. killed many people and
28:43 she was very guilty because the the the husband had invented a gun that had self-loading that killed many people.
28:50 And so therefore when he died she went into shock and she saw a medium and the medium and she had bought a house at the
28:56 time the house only had like 10 rooms or something like that and the medium told her you know what you keep building
29:02 rooms as long as they're building and building and building and building you will not
29:07 die and she believed it. So she hired a whole bunch of people, millions of dollars, and she built room after room
29:13 after room until she reached the age of 85 years old. She died. The medium was
29:20 wrong. Then built 150 rooms, 2,000 doors, 10,000 windows, 45 fireplaces,
29:28 and only 13 toilets. Well, how do you figure if it's a Chinese family, every room will have a
29:34 toilet, right? Right. This this woman Winchester I mean and then see the way
29:40 she builds her house. Imagine if you walk through this door. What will happen to you? You walk through that door. You
29:47 will die. Look at this staircase goes up to the ceiling and there's nothing there. Look
29:55 at this door. You open this door. You go through here. There are doors there. You know there are 10,000 windows and most
30:02 windows are not out to the light. The reason why she did that was so that the evil spirits chasing her would be
30:07 confused and they' be trapped and open the door. Ah, you falls out. So that's her way of denying death.
30:15 That's one way we could do. We could deny death. The second way is where we could transcend death. Remember the uh
30:21 the the story of Homer of of Achilles, the great Greek hero on the shores
30:29 outside the city of Troy where they were going to attack and destroy Troy. He was given a choice by the prophet. You stay
30:37 and you fight and you die in glory and they'll remember you forever. Your name
30:43 will transcend history. Or you could go back to where you came from, marry a
30:49 lovely girl, have many children, grow old, and die happy. He chose to fight.
30:55 And today we actually have Brad Pit acting as Achilles. He hasn't died. He
31:01 lives on in our minds. We all talking about him. We don't talk about anybody else. We talk about Achilles.
31:07 Or we could live on in our children. Einstein says, "Our death is not the end if we can live on in our children for
31:14 they are us. Our bodies have only wilted leaves on the tree of life." I can see
31:19 so many wilted leaves here. And that's why we give our children, the Chinese give the children a hard time
31:26 because we are wilted leaves and we want you to live on and you're not doing too bad. The version 2.0 must be better than
31:31 1.0, isn't it? And you look like a.5. And so therefore they on the children all the time to study get your A's you
31:39 know do well because that's how we can live through you Einstein's idea and a lot of people think that right it's a
31:45 fact but the bottom line was a very wise and famous movie maker his name was
31:51 Woody Allen he said these words I don't want to live out my life in future generations I want to live in my
31:57 apartment yeah my children live they live now but I want to live just because my children
32:05 live, but I'm dead. I want to live in my my apartment. That's what he says. So, this idea of living your life through
32:12 your children is actually ridiculous. It doesn't quite work. Perhaps you not think you don't run away from death,
32:19 okay? Or you don't want to transcend death. You could think of death as your friend. This is a part of a speech Steve
32:25 Jobes gave to the University of Stanford graduating class in 2005. And he said,
32:30 "Death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way
32:37 for the new. Right now, the new is you. Someday, not too long from now, you will
32:42 gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it's quite true. So, his approach to death is
32:49 out with the old, in with the new. There's no emotion involved in it. And why? Well, the reason why is that if you
32:56 look at death, okay, you look at life, birth, and then your death. How many of
33:01 you remember the time before you were born? Put your hands up.
33:08 If you put your hands up, I'll send you for counseling. Can you remember when you were but a
33:14 twinkle in your father's eye or you're swimming around in one of his sperms?
33:20 You can't. So, so if that's the case, if you can't remember that when you die,
33:26 you think you'll remember anything. You see what I mean? The thinking is that this comes from Epicurius. Epicurius
33:33 says death is not to be feared. It is nonexistence. Fear of death is natural but not
33:39 rational. It's not rational. Just if it's rational to think of life before life then it's natural to think about
33:46 death, life after death, right? It's not. So he he say it's not rational in a
33:51 sense it is not rational, right? But our hearts feel differently. Um he says that
33:58 we're like the ends of a book dead life and death in between. We are like
34:04 characters in the Stephen King novel. We only exist within beginning and the end
34:09 and in between we don't care. We just live our lives. So but the problem is not death. Bible very clearly says Paul
34:16 says the sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law. That's the
34:22 problem. We run away from death because the problem isn't death. It is sin. And
34:27 the power of sin is the law. Every day we are inundated with images like this
34:32 where a child gas and dies or lies dying
34:38 or bleeding in the arms of a distraught and anguished father. You come to the father and you tell him it's okay. You
34:45 never think of life before birth. Word. Now you don't bother child die now. It's okay. You think he will agree with you.
34:52 He will shake his fist when they send 69 missiles out to blast the the the the
34:57 air force of Syria. The world clapped. Why do you think the world clap? Because
35:02 there's finally there's justice. We live in a world where there's justice. Because if justice is not
35:09 present in the afterlife, then life doesn't make any sense at all.
35:15 All the people who stole the billions of dollars, we don't know whether they get justice in Malaysia, would they? We
35:22 don't know. We hope they will, but you don't know. And I don't want to live in a world where people can do what they
35:27 like in whatever atrocities they may commit. And if the United States doesn't fires missiles, you will get no justice.
35:34 Deep in the heart of every person in this world, there will be a desire for justice because this is what we feel and
35:41 we are created with. There's a time where we will face judgment. The problem
35:46 isn't death. The problem is you live. If you live on the dark side of the moon
35:53 alone for all of eternity, how many you want eternal life?
35:59 I don't think anybody away from your wife, your children, and any personal
36:04 contact. You live in the dark side of the moon forever and ever and ever. And then you pray to die because when you go
36:10 to hell, you will be separated from the only source of light in the entire universe and that is God on the dark
36:19 side of the moon. This is what it says in Revelations. And I saw the dead great and small
36:25 standing before the throne. And all the books were open. And another book was opened, which is the book of life. And
36:31 the dead were judged by what was written in the books according to what they had done. Na gave up the dead who were in
36:36 it. And death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them. And they would judge each of them according to what they had
36:42 done. And if you ask ourselves very honestly, we each carry the baggage of
36:48 failure. If we were to die tomorrow, I'm going to ask you a question. Would
36:55 you be standing proud before God? You may say Assad is a bad guy. He's gassed
37:03 so many people. But there a lot of things I suspect that we're not very proud of doing too. And that before the
37:09 throne of God, we too will fear judgment. But Corinthians says, "Death
37:15 is swallowed up in victory." Or death, where is your victory? Oh death, where is your string sling? The sting of death
37:21 is sin and the power of the sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us
37:27 the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. There is a solution. There's a
37:33 solution to death. We don't have to run away. Death is not your friend. Death is not your master. Death cannot be
37:40 ignored. But death can be defeated. Some time ago, just three weeks ago, there was a man in the Indonesian
37:48 uh a village who was heard shouting and screaming at night. People don't know what's happening. The next day they
37:53 went, you know what they found? They found a snake. Didn't find the man.
37:58 Where do you think the man was? In the snake. Dead. You see, when Paul
38:05 gives us this idea, you don't see death anymore. Where is death inside? You only
38:10 see the snake. And so it is when we stare death in the face when all of us have to look at the
38:17 other part of your life. You don't have to see death anymore. What do you see? You see the one that swallowed up death.
38:24 That's what you see. You see the one that swallowed up death. John 3:14 to 15
38:29 says that Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. So must the son of man be lifted up that whoever believes in
38:35 him may have eternal life. And this passage is taken from Numbers 21 where people were killed by poisonous snakes.
38:42 and Moses put up one snake and you look at that snake and look upon that source
38:48 of ill and you'll be cured. And so it is with us when we now look at the cross.
38:55 We don't see death anymore. We see the one who has swallowed up death. You can see the outline. We can see the nails.
39:02 You can see the thorns. We can see the pain. But death is completely swallowed
39:09 up. only you have Jesus in your life.
39:14 How do we prepare for the best life? Now brothers and sisters, do not live as if
39:20 your best life is now. Now is the best opportunity that you have. And the opportunity of is to do
39:28 this. Beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work
39:35 of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. While you
39:40 have breath, don't retire. I've seen so many older
39:46 people. I've done my bit for king and country. My kids are okay. I'm going to retire. You retire within five years.
39:52 Most of you are dead. It's a fact. You need some tension in life. But more
39:57 important, the Bible says your work in the Lord is not in vain. Your labor is
40:02 not in. Every single thing that you do matters. And if you're younger, it even
40:08 matters more because there more of your life to to give to God. Every single factor here, the most important factor
40:14 was to change lives. You know why will people die? People die for things they believe to be true. Why did the
40:20 disciples die? They died for the truth. You know what the truth was? The truth was someone raised from the dead. You
40:27 know, jihadist will die, a soldier will die for something he believes in. And we
40:33 know that that something must be really convicted. So the lives of disciples show you that they died for a resurrection. If there's no
40:39 resurrection, they won't die. They wouldn't have died for a non-resurrection.
40:44 Peter Ber writes of the secularized words. He's an American philosopher, Austrian American philosopher who works
40:51 at Boston University. He wrote a beautiful essay entitled the world without windows. We live in a
40:56 secularized world that has got no windows. Imagine a car that you have. You drive the car but no windows. How do
41:03 you drive a car without windows? You just do whatever you like. There are no consequences outside. Steve Job says
41:11 these words. All right. Remember that soon I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I ever encountered to
41:17 help me make the big choices in life because almost everything, all external expectations, all pride, all fear of
41:25 embarrassment or failure, these things just fall away in the face of death. Leaving only what is truly important.
41:31 remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know of avoiding the trap of thinking that you have something to
41:37 lose. You're already naked. There's no reason not to follow your heart. So for him, death is just
41:45 end. And so therefore, it accentuates the need to enjoy my life, follow your heart, and do whatever the hell you want
41:50 to do. But that's like driving without windows, isn't it? That's why Steve Job
41:57 doesn't like windows. He has Apple.
42:03 If your best life is now,
42:08 then this is the prison of modernity that you will live in because you will live in the world without windows. You
42:14 only see be now and the end one end of story and that's not how you have to
42:19 live your life. Let me share with you another famous person. His name was
42:24 Alfred Nobel in 1888. He woke up one day and you know what he
42:30 read the orbituary and obituary said Alfred Nobel
42:36 whatever and then died 1888 and he read chief title dynamite king
42:44 you know what dynamite king he invented dynamite and dynamite king killed thousands and millions and millions of
42:49 people up to this day and he didn't want to be identified and remembered for all
42:55 eternity as the man who made the dyname that killed millions and millions of people. So immediately changed you know
43:01 the the orbituary was wrong because his brother had died Alfred Nobel they put you know Alfred Nobel instead of his
43:07 brother's name but there was a shock there was a moment of transcendence in his life every one of you you may
43:14 believe in Christ you may not believe in Christ but there is a moment in your life where some tragedy or something will hit you and you have a moment of
43:21 transcendence where God breaks through to your heart. Lambie put up his wall and the tears of his wife broke through
43:27 that wall. You can put up walls, but at some stage in life, if God is merciful to you, he will break through that wall.
43:33 There'll be a moment of transcendence when you you need to think that you need you may have to die. And I I I live in a
43:40 profession. I I do a profession. I have to tell people that they had to die all the time. I there six months to live, one year to
43:48 live. But you don't realize that I also have a limited period of time to live. Every single one of us has a life
43:55 sentence. Some longer, some shorter. You never know. And the moment a transcendence comes to you, when your
44:01 doctor tells you you got cancer, it doesn't have to be that. I'm telling you all, you look at your page in your book,
44:06 there's only one page there. There's an ending there. It could be 2015, 2030 or
44:12 35, but there is an end. But the important thing is there's another page in your book, the empty
44:19 one. That's the one that writes for all eternity. Alfred Nobel changed his life.
44:24 He donated his money for the Nobel Prize. And everywhere in the world they
44:29 will talk every year they will talk about a Nobel Prize where the best and brightest for peace, for medicine, for
44:37 science, anything that will improve this world, his name is now attached to that rather than
44:43 dynamite king. And so therefore for us, how do we live?
44:49 We can live as we continue to live now, protecting our life, our best life now.
44:55 Or we can live looking to these hands, the perfect body which we'll bear one
45:01 day. And as we live our life now, maybe we too will need some nails through our
45:09 hands and nails through our feet. Maybe we too may have to sit on the cross and suffer because the best is yet to come.
45:17 But whatever it is, even if you have to suffer and you stand up for your faith, you know that whatever you do, God will
45:24 not owe you. He will do the right thing. Your toil in him is never in vain. Just as he has
45:31 risen from the dead, we too have an image that we will be with our savior.
45:37 Let's pray. Father Lord, we just thank you
45:44 that we celebrate this great Easter. We know that he was buried.
45:51 We know the tomb is empty. We know he appeared to 500 individually in groups.
45:60 And we know the lives of disciples have changed the face of this earth. And there are more Christians in this world
46:06 than any other faith. So father Lord today we confidently stand before you.
46:12 We confess that for many of us we've been living our best life now
46:17 but we pray Lord that you impress upon us that our best life is yet to come and
46:23 father Lord we pray for anybody else here who does not know you as Lord and Savior. You don't have that hope and you
46:29 live in denial of death or befriending of death or being scared of death. We pray oh Lord that you will touch their
46:36 hearts. they'll come to alpha at least and come to know you as Lord and Savior.
46:41 And for the rest of us, help us be steadfast, immovable, knowing that our
46:47 toil in you is not in vain. We ask this for Jesus sake. Leave it in.
