Will you turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 15, please? Verses 20 through 23. 1 Corinthians 15, 20 through 23. And in the 20th and 23rd verses, mark those words, firstfruits. 1 Corinthians 15, 20 through 23. But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order, Christ the firstfruits. Afterward, they that are Christ's at his coming. The Jewish believers to whom Paul was writing knew full well of what he was speaking. When he talked about the firstfruits, he referred to the ceremony of the firstfruits, which was based on an experience in the Old Testament. As you know, the people of God had been many, many years in Egyptian bondage and slavery. Time and time again they had tried to leave, but to no avail. It is a picture of the believer's slavery in sin. Finally, after plague and judgment upon the Pharaoh, there came the death of the firstborn, and the promise of judgment to all who did not believe in God sufficiently to have the blood placed on the lentils of the door. Then when the death angel came, he passed over all of those that were under the blood. A beautiful picture of the final judgment of the world. After the blood had been applied, the children of Israel that believed were finally freed from bondage. They were led by Moses, a type of their Savior, to the glorious and promised land of Canaan. When they arrived at the shores of Canaan, they made a tragic mistake. The Bible tells us that Moses sent them in to find out the best way to go in to the land. They were not supposed to find out whether or not to go in. The vote had been taken. The die was cast. The directive of God given. The mind of God determined. The purpose for the decision was to decide the best way to do it. However, when they returned, ten of them said, the land is filled with giants. There are too many problems. We can't go in. And only two of them, Joshua and Caleb, had the faith to possess the land. Consequently, God sent them back. And for forty years, they wandered over a few square miles, almost seemingly aimlessly, waiting until an older generation, which disbelieved, had died off. And a young generation that dared to believe, to possess the land and enter in by faith, was raised to maturity that entered in. In the wilderness, God had taught this young generation to have faith. The one single thing required to be blessed of God, to have faith. And he had done it like this. Every day, he allowed them for forty years, their daily provision for food. Manna from heaven fell every morning. As regularly as the dew, it was there. As regularly as the rising and setting of the sun, it was there. If there was any left over than they needed, they were not allowed to store it for a rainy day. It was to be gathered into baskets and destroyed. They were to start from scratch every morning, believing God for that day's provision. Now, when they reached the Holy Land, God told them to do something, commemorating what they had learned in the wilderness, in the ceremony of the firstfruits. And it is this ceremony, commemorating their faith and deliverance in God, which in the ceremony of the firstfruits, Paul refers, when he says that Jesus Christ, who rose from the grave in bodily resurrection, is a type of the firstfruits for us. It is a word that we do not understand, but one which they believed very, very well. Very simply, in the ceremony of the firstfruits, as soon as the seed was planted, and the first shoots grew in the barley field once a year, they were to rush quickly into the field and bring a certain portion of it to the priest as an acknowledgement that God had given the increased and that they were being delivered of Almighty God. This morning, I want to preach a simple sermon to you around the simple incident of planting that corn and watching it come to life. And I would suggest to you three things. Notice, if you will, that in so doing, they did something they had never, ever done before. Think of it. They were being asked to plant a grain of corn. You say, I've planted gardens and seeds, that's nothing. But ladies and gentlemen, these people had never planted anything before. You see, they had never known what it meant to reap and to sow. They had never experienced laying something ugly and scarred in death and waiting for it to burst forth in glorious light. If they would have planted a seed when it came up in a week or two, they would have been 50 miles away. The next day, they were five or 10 miles away. And by the time the spring planting came to fruition, when the harvest came forth in the fall, they were millenniums of miles of wandering around in the desert away. They had never, ever had the simple experience of taking something that was alive, that had turned to death and shriveled, that was ugly and dead, and placing it beneath the black sod and leaving it there. I wonder with what interest they must have waited until the first shoot came forth to see what it was going to be like, this new life which came from something dead. A simple thing, but something for them that they had never experienced. Just so is death a unique and new thing for us. Every funeral is different. No two deaths are alike. All of us are called upon in the death of loved ones and friends to periodically place beneath the sod, the body of a dead one. A loved one that we have cared for, that we, as far as we know, may or may never see again. But we have to believe. We have to have faith. But we are experiencing something that is not easy for us to do. You can never be quite ready for death. They try to make it easy. But you can put patent leather shoes on the dead person. You can place a garland of roses on the body that's inside that casket. But it's never easy. It's always different. It's always unique. It's always hard. Somehow we're never quite prepared for death. Just so the death of the Son of God. Never before had a man died for the sins of the world. God had only one Son and He gave Him in death. That had never happened before and will never happen again. The Bible tells us in Hebrews chapter 6 that if Jesus Christ, if a man could lose his salvation and get it back again, Jesus Christ would have to come from heaven and be crucified on the cross afresh. And adds that that never is going to happen. The experience of the death of self. When a believer comes to understand that for me to die is Christ and to live his game, that to lose my life, I in fact find it. It is hard for a man to understand that. It's hard for us to learn the principle that they had to learn that in reality, in life, you give by losing. You find life by dying. Jesus said that if our lives are hid with Christ and God, we should really live. It was an awful and awesome new experience for them. But I suggest to you that in this experience, it was one in which they had to have great faith. And that the only way they could experience it was because they did have faith. How did they know that that ugly little shriveled seed would burst forth into glorious life? They had never stayed around long enough to watch that shoot come forward, let alone go into a sheep or into a tree. Why? Because they had faith in the word of someone who had experienced it. And ladies and gentlemen, I submit to you that when you and I allow the body of a loved one, when our own body is placed into the ground, because Christ rose from the grave as the first fruit, the promise, the guarantee of the resurrection of the body for the believer, that we too have the word of one who has experienced death and who has experienced resurrection. And we have the guarantee of one who not only experienced it, but experienced it victoriously because he was Lord of death. I call to your attention that Jesus Christ gathered up in the resurrection all of the loose ends of the questions of life and death. And present them to us in victory with composure and peace. I am saying to you that Jesus was absolutely Lord of life and death. That he was absolutely in control of his own life, of his own death, and of his own resurrection. He was in control of his death as to the method of his death. Twice they tried to lynch him. Once they tried to stone him. Once they tried to kill him by pushing him over a precipice. Jesus said, you're not going to kill me this way. The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men to be crucified. Jesus said, you're not going to name the way that I die. He's not going to be hit by a car or be drowned in an ocean. Jesus came as the Lamb of God. He came as sacrifice to shed his blood as the Lamb of God for the sins of the world on the cross. And he said, I must be crucified. He was in control of his death. As to the manner of his death. When other men died on the cross, they shrieked and howled and screamed obscenities and blasphemies at their tormentors. Not so. The Bible says when Jesus Christ died, he bowed his head and gave up the ghost. The word bowed is the same word lay. When Jesus said, I, the Son of Man, have not where to lay my head. It is a picture of a man quietly, in composure and serenity, gently resting his head on a pillow. Jesus did not die. He did not die screaming and afraid of death. He said, now it is finished. Now the scriptures have been accomplished. Now I am ready to die. And in composure, he bowed his head and gave up the ghost. Jesus was in control of his life, death, and resurrection. As to the moment of his death. Not one moment prematurely. Not one moment too late. But when Jesus was ready to die. When all things were accomplished for the atonement of the sins of the world. The Bible says he bowed his head and dismissed his spirit. Yet, he said, now spirit, you can leave me. Now I am ready to die. Now death, you can take me. But not until he was ready. And Jesus also said to the Pharisees. Know ye not that I have the power to lay my life down again. And the power to take it up again. Jesus was Lord of death. And I am saying simply to you that when these people experienced something. The simple but awful experience for them of laying something dead beneath the ground. And believing and all they had to do was to believe. All they had was faith. All they had was hope. But faith and trust and hope in the integrity of the word of one who experienced it. That just so to you and I vastly more so. Understand that if we are crucified Christ with Christ. So shall we live with him. And in glory we shall reign with him. Because we have the word. Not just of a mere man. But of one who was perfectly Lord of life. And Lord of death. And Lord of his own resurrection. The second thing that I see in this passage of scripture. Not only did they do something they had never done before. But they saw something they had never seen. Before. A new dawning burst of a blade of grass coming forth. The first shoot of the barley. The first stalk was a miraculous thing to them. Imagine how glorious it was. The first time they drank the juice of a cherry tree. The first time they tasted a beautiful peach. The first time they had planted corn. And watched the golden roasting years come to full bloom. And covered it with butter and salt and pepper. Mmm mmm. I'll bet they had fried chicken with it. They had never ever done anything like that before. They had never seen anything before. Imagine the wonder and the delight at the transforming power that was going on beneath that sod. That an ugly, gray, dead, hard, dry little corn could burst forth into glorious life. Ladies and gentlemen. The Bible says, Eye has not seen. Ear hath not heard. nor hath it entered into the heart of man what God hath prepared for them that love Him. The glorious resurrection body of Jesus, which was so likened to His glorious body before the foundation of the world, ere He ever stepped to the world through the womb of the virgin and took on Himself the likeness of sinful flesh, was so glorious and beautiful that all of heaven bowed at His feet with wonder at Him who was the illuminating light of the world. And in His resurrection, when He laid aside as a cocoon that becomes a butterfly, the ugly body from the cross that was wracked by the sin of the world, that was broken and emaciated and lacerated and bloody and destroyed and buried in a cold grave, when He came forth again with that glorious body like unto His body from the foundation of the world. It was so holy. It was so beautiful. It was so wonderful that He said to Martha who wanted to touch Him, No, I am not yet a sinner to my Father. I cannot let any earthly contamination come on me. I have finished the work my Father has sent me to do. I am saying to you that the wonder with which they saw that little ugly thing turn into a glorious and beautiful thing is a perfect picture of what the believer experiences when we pass through death into the grave and come forth. Is it any wonder the Bible says, Brethren, it does not yet appear what we shall be, but praise God we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. They saw something they had never seen before and so will we. You think the singing of this choir is good. Wait till you hear the choir in heaven. You think this place is beautiful. Wait till you see the streets of glory. You think the tastes and delights of life are filled with harmony and beauty. Wait until we taste endless fellowship with the Father and the redeemed of the ages forever. It was something I could never fathom until first they experienced it. Let me say this last word. Finally, they learned something they had never known before. They learned, you see, that all of life belongs to God. When that little piece of corn was placed beneath the sod, they had done everything they could do. If it was ever going to burst forth into the glorious beauty promised, God would have to do it. They did not have the power to send the rain. They could not make the sun to shine. They could not make that nugget of grain burst forth into beauty. It was all in the hands of God. Then they learned another thing. They learned that because all of life is from God, that all of life belongs to God. You see, in the ceremony of the first fruits, as soon as the first grains began to come through in those beautiful green shoots, grew into a stalk with grain, they were to rush into a common field from flat ground and harvest immediately the first day's harvest, long before the rest of it came up. The very first fruit, they were to rush it to the temple where it was to be given to the priest, where it would be thrashed with soft pine canes so as not to harm it, mixed with a one -third amount of oil, symbolic of the Holy Spirit, incense with one -third incense, symbolic of it being a beautiful savor in the nostrils of God, given to the hands of the priest, who would then stand and fling a portion of it toward the four corners of the world, symbolically saying that the resurrection from the grave by the blood of Jesus Christ made possible is symbolic of its reality, of its power to all men. When the blood of Christ, when the first fruit, and when the Holy Spirit is in it, God saves anybody that comes to Him. Oh, how wonderful that little ceremony and the powerful, poignant truth in there for each one of us. Listen, let me say to you that it was also required. Why? Because it was God's. And He was the owner. He was the one that gave the increase. For you see, if a man did not bring that first harvest to the Lord, God would not increase the rest of His harvest. It all belonged to God. This was only a token like a tie, just a token of the lordship and ownership of God over it all. And this one other word, I want to say to you two other quick words. First of all, this was a promise of a greater harvest. It was the promise of the greater harvest. God said, if you will bring to me the firstfruits, I will bless you and give you another harvest. Ladies and gentlemen, Paul says Jesus Christ is the firstfruit for us. He is the promise of the resurrection for all who believe. Just as Adam was the first man who opened the gates for death by sin and hell for all who sinned, so was Jesus Christ, the second Adam, the firstfruits of them that slept, the promise of a great harvest of all who come after him. Because Jesus rose from the grave, I can rise from the grave. Because he lives eternally in glory, I will live eternally in glory. That's the message of Jesus Christ is the firstfruits of them that slept. And this last thing, it was a taste, a sample of what the real harvest was going to be like. When you come to Jesus Christ, he promises you that you'll go to heaven. Well, let me tell you something else. He gives you the Holy Spirit who creates a taste, a lifestyle, a love, a feeling, a glow, a warmth, a joy inside of you, which is just a little taste of what heaven's going to be like. It was a sample as that firstfruit tasted, so tasted all the harvest. And as is the taste of glory divine, when Jesus lives inside your heart, so will be all of eternity. I usually study and preach from the King James. It is beautiful, and I enjoy it. But I want in closing this morning to read from the 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians, from one of the beautiful Living Bible New Translations. You need not turn, because I will skip through there and just touch on the more important things. Listen, with this we conclude. Now let me remind you, brothers, of what the gospel really is, for it has not changed. It is the same good news I preached to you before. You welcomed it then and still do now, for your faith is squarely built on this wonderful message. I passed it right on to you from the first time it was told to me, how that Christ died for our sins, as the Scriptures said He would, and that He was buried, and that three days afterward He arose from the grave, just as the prophets foretold. He was seen by Peter and later by the rest of the twelve. But tell me this. Since you believe that what we preach, that Christ rose from the dead, why are some of you arguing as to how dead people will ever come back to life again? For if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ must still be dead. But if He is still dead, then all of our preaching is useless, and your trust in God is empty. And we apostles are liars because we have said that God raised Christ from the dead, and of course that isn't true if the dead do not come back to life. You see, the Sadducees did not believe that you lived again. And if they don't, Christ is still dead. And you are foolish to keep on trusting God to save you, and you're still under the condemnation of your sins. In that case, all Christians who have died are lost. And if being a Christian is of value only to us now in this life, then we're of all men most miserable. But the fact is that Christ did actually rise from the dead, and has become the first of millions who will come back to life again someday. Death came into this world because of what one man, Adam, did. And it is because of what this other man, Christ, has done that now there is resurrection from the dead. After the end, after when the end will come, he will turn the kingdom over to God, the Father, having put down all enemies under his foot of every kind. For Christ will be the king until he has defeated all of his enemies, including the last enemy, death. This, too, must be defeated and ended. But someone will ask, how will the dead be brought to life again? What kind of bodies will they have? Well, he says, just as there are different kinds of seeds and plants, so also there are different kinds of flesh. Humans, animals, birds are all different. And the angels in heaven have bodies far different from ours, and the beauty of one is different from the glory of the other. The sun is of one glory, and the moon of the stars are of another kind. They're all different. In the same way, our earthly bodies, which die and decay, are different from the bodies we shall have when we come back to life again, when we shall never die. The bodies we now have embarrass us, for they become sick and die. But they will be full of glory when we come back to life again. Yes, they are weak, dying bodies now, but when we live again, they will be full of strength. They're just human bodies of death, but when they come back to life again, they will be superhuman bodies. for just as these natural human bodies there are also supernatural spiritual bodies the scriptures tell us that the first atom was given a natural human body but christ is more than that for he was given a life -giving spirit first then we have these human bodies and later on god gives us spiritual heavenly bodies every human being has a body just like atoms made of dust but all who became christ will have the same kind of body as his a body from heaven just as each of us now has a body like atoms so shall one day we each have a body like christ i tell you this my brothers an earthly body made of flesh and blood cannot get into god's kingdom these perishable bodies of ours are not the right kind to live forever but i am telling you this strange and wonderful secret we shall not all die we shall all be given new bodies it will all happen in a moment in the twinkling of an eye when the last trumpet of god is blown for the trumpet will blast from the sky and all the christians who have died will suddenly come alive with new bodies that will never die and then we who are alive and shall suddenly have new bodies too for our earthly bodies the ones we now have that can die must be transformed into heavenly bodies that cannot perish but will live forever when this happens then at last this scripture will come true death is swallowed up in victory oh death where then is thy victory where then is your sting for sin the sting that causes death will all be gone and the law which reveals our sins will no longer be our judge how we thank god for all of this it is he who makes us victorious through jesus christ our lord a beautiful miracle of the first fruits the ceremony of the first fruits jesus is the first fruit for us the symbol the symptom the down payment the guarantee the assurance and the preview of coming attractions for the believer are you a believer are you in jesus christ are you in him by faith have you been born again if you will trust the savior this day he will place down inside your heart a new character a new personality and you will begin to become like jesus christ and finally at the resurrection when jesus comes and we which are alive shall remain in the coming of the lord will not go before them which have already died they'll come out of the graves first get a new glorified body we which are alive shall be immediately translated and we'll get a glorified body and we'll be caught up to meet the lord and so shall we ever be with the lord in the air the unbeliever will be left behind the unbeliever has no promise the unbeliever has no hope but the man that is in jesus christ has a guarantee of greater things to come may we bow our heads together as we pray our father we thank you for the lord jesus who became the first fruits of them that slept we thank you that he is the guarantee of a greater harvest that because he died and lives again we when we are willing to die to self through christ on the cross and receive the propitiation of his sins for our own awful sins though he never sinned yet he became sin for us that we too because he lives we shall live thank god thank god we pray that every person listening on radio and television every man woman young person in this building here assembled shall know of a confidence that jesus christ lives in their heart by faith for we pray in the master's name