20 Sermon Illustrations on Resurrection

Do you know for sure what's going to happen to you after you die? The prospect of that should make you think. It made Peter Waldo anxious for the first time when, at a party, a friend of his suddenly keeled over and died. He went home and looked through his library of history books, scientific books, and philosophical books, trying to find something about death. But they told him nothing. Finally he turned to the Bible. There he found information that couldn't be found elsewhere-basic truths that were given by Christ Himself, who had experienced death and conquered it. He told what it is and what would happen to the righteous and the unrighteous after death occurs. This is a subject that vitally concerns everyone. Christ is the only one who ever rose from the dead of His own volition and by His own power. That's why His revelation about what happens after death appeared believable to Waldo. Peter Waldo became a noted Christian reformer, founder of the Waldensian Church of Europe. A Unique Person An unbeliever once asked a Christian, "If I told you that this child was born without the intervention of a human father, would you believe it?" After a little thought the Christian replied, "Yes, if he were able to grow up and live like Christ." In other words, Christ's sinless life, His death and resurrection make the virgin birth believable.

A closely sealed vase was found in a mummy pit in Egypt by the English traveler Wilkinson. In it were discovered a few peas, old, wrinkled, and hard as a stone. The peas were planted carefully under a glass, and at the end of 30 days, they sprang into life, after having lain sleeping in the dust of a tomb for almost 3,000 years-a faint illustration of the mortal body which shall put on immortality. "Because He lives, we shall live also." A Solitary Grain In April, the Sunday school teacher asked all eight children in her class to hide within an empty container a small object that represented life in the spring. Not wanting to embarrass eight-year-old Stephen, whose mental retardation was becoming more manifest, the teacher suggested that the children all place their unlabeled containers on her desk. Since she feared that Stephen might not have caught on, she decided that she should open them. The first had a tiny flower. "What a lovely sign of new life!" "I brought that one!" the donor exclaimed. Next came a rock. "That must be Stephen's," the teacher thought, since rocks do not symbolize new life. But Billy shouted that his rock had moss on it, and moss was new life. The teacher agreed. A butterfly flew from the third container, and another child bragged that her choice was best of all. The fourth container was empty. "That has to be Stephen's," thought the teacher, quickly reaching for the fifth. "Please, don't skip mine!'Stephen interjected. "But it's empty." "That's right," said Stephen. "The tomb was empty, and that is new life for everyone." Later that summer, Stephen's condition grew worse, and he died. On his casket at the funeral, mourners found eight containers. They were ALL EMPTY. No Tomb to Visit In one of the villages of Northern India a missionary was preaching in a bazaar. As he closed, a Muslim gentleman came up and said, "You must admit we have one thing you have not, and it is better than anything you have." The missionary smiled and said, "I should be pleased to hear what it is." The Muslim said, "You know when we go to Mecca we at least find a coffin. But when you Christians go to Jerusalem, which is your Mecca, you find nothing but an empty grave." But the missionary just smiled and said, "That is just the difference. Mohammed is dead; Mohammed is in the coffin. And false systems of religion and philosophy are in their coffins, but Jesus Christ, whose kingdom is to include all nations and kindreds and tribes, is not here; He is risen. And all power in heaven and on earth is given unto Him. That is our hope." A living Christ! That is our hope. He is not dead, but alive forevermore. The Disciples Made No Relic of Christ's Tomb If ye seek Jesus, do not go to His grave. You will not find Him there. Is it not quite striking that after the disciples were convinced that He had risen they never again visited His tomb? At least there is no record of it. Why should they? It was only an incident, a temporary halting place in the experience of our Lord. They did not make pilgrimages to it. They did not esteem it above any other place. They did not bury it beneath tokens of affection. They did not break off pieces of the rock and keep them as relics for seeking souls to look at in the hope of meriting divine favor. No, after that first Sunday evening, the disciples were done with the tomb. Why should they give their time to the veneration of places, when they had the living Savior with them? To us, Christ is all and in all. He is alive, and He has power to give life. Not by meat and drink, not by pilgrimages and fastings, but by looking unto Him do we enter into life that death cannot touch.

The chief priests and the Pharisees were determined that Jesus was going to stay in his grave. They used every resource and power available to see to that. They secured the tomb by placing a seal on the great stone that had been rolled in front of it to close the entrance (Matthew 27:66). They also posted guards at the entrance of the tomb. These were not the spekoulator who were bodyguards or executioners (Mark 6:27), nor the phulax who were keepers (Acts 5:23), but the elite koustodia who were the Roman army's special forces. In spite of all their human efforts, the Jewish leaders were unable to prevent Jesus from accomplishing what had already been determined and promised: "After three days I will rise again" (Matthew 27:63). These carnal-minded, religious leaders did not know that NOTHING in the physical realm has the ability to hinder the divine will from accomplishing its purpose. YOU CANNOT STOP A REAL RESURRECTION. Paul states that all who are baptized into Christ are baptized into his death, and in the same manner that Christ was resurrected they are to be resurrected to a new life in Christ (Romans 6:3-7). There are individuals who want others to believe that someone or something prevents their resurrection to a new life. Such a person remains the same individual that he was before his "conversion." At this point, you should again remember that YOU CANNOT STOP A REAL RESURRECTION in an individual's life. You can stop a fake, but not a genuine resurrection to a new life in Christ. God's incomparably great power is available for those who believe. "That power is like the working of His mighty strength, which He exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms" (Ephesians 1:19-20). If you deliberately decide in your heart that you are going to bury your old self and be resurrected to a new life in Christ, you have God's promise that you cannot be stopped. However, if you are looking for an excuse for living the same old life day after day, you will find one. There are numerous people and things to blame. You can blame society, or your mate or your children, or your parents, or your neighbors or hypocrites in the church. You can blame bad breaks, the wrong side of the bed, circumstances, or your tough childhood. Excuses are endless, but if you want to be resurrected to a new life you will be. Nothing can stop you. If you are a fake, you will always have an excuse why you cannot change. If you are genuine, you will not be stopped. YOU CANNOT STOP A REAL RESURRECTION! A Glorious Body In the days when any country boy could stand in front of a blacksmith's shop and watch with fascinated eyes what happened there, something analogous to the resurrection of the body occurred. The smith would put a rusty, cold, dull piece of iron into the fire, and, after awhile, take that identical piece of iron out of the fire, but now bright and glowing. Thus it will be with our bodies: they are laid down in the grave, dead, heavy, earthly; but at the general resurrection this dead, heavy, earthly body shall arise living and glorious. The Corruptible Made Incorruptible A professor of biology made it his custom to stand before his students holding up a little seed between his thumb and forefinger. When he bowed before the seed, his students were mystified. This university professor had spent his whole life studying the beginning of life, and he acknowledged to his students that it was still a mystery to him. He said: "I know exactly what this seed consists of in the exact proportions of water, carbon, and other elements. I can mix these individual elements and make a seed that will look exactly like this one. If I plant the seed that I have compounded, it will rot. The various elements I have put together will be absorbed by the ground. However, if I sow the seed that God made, it will spring up into a plant, because it contains that mysterious element we call life." The physical resurrection of Christ is just as much a mystery. In fact, the life you now possess which causes your body to function and renew itself continually, and not collapse into a putrefying mass, is also a mystery. He, therefore, who in the beginning created our present corruptible bodies, will also create a new body without having to collect the various elements of our old ones from the earth. My Resurrection Has Come Suppose a visitor to our earth from another planet were to see a caterpillar on a rosebush, and a conversation could take place between them. It might go something like this: "How ugly you are and how gross, doing nothing but eat, eat, eat, all day long," says the visitor. "True," replies the caterpillar, "but I won't always be like this. Some day I'll have beautiful wings, and fly from flower to flower." "A likely story," says the visitor with a laugh. A few days later, this stranger finds a hard brown chrysalis on the rosebush and is surprised to hear the caterpillar's voice saying, "Now I'm worse off than before. You think I'm dead because I can neither move nor eat, but soon I shall have a resurrection and fly in the sun." "Poor deluded worm," says the visitor, "you'd better accept the fact that your life is over." But about three weeks later, the stranger, strolling in the rose garden, is surprised to hear the caterpillar's voice again. Looking for the chrysalis, he sees one beautiful wing and then another unfolding from its cracked shell. "You see," says the voice, "my resurrection has come," and spreading its wings the butterfly flits away to enjoy its wonderful new existence. The Living One A Mohammedan and a Christian were discussing their religions and had agreed that both Mohammed and Christ were prophets. Where, then, lay the difference? The Christian illustrated it this way: "I came to a crossroads and I saw a dead man and a living man. Which one did I ask for directions?" The response came quickly, "The living one, of course." "Why, then," asked his friend, "do you send me to Mohammed who is dead, instead of Christ who is alive?" This is the basic difference between Christ and every other religious leader. All the others came into the world, lived, and died-but none of them lived again. The resurrection of Christ was the one event that persuaded His disciples once for all that He was the Christ, God's Son.

It is said of West, an eminent man, that he was going to take up the doctrine of the resurrection, and just show the world what a fraud it was, while Lord Lyttleton was going to take up the conversion of Saul, and just show the folly of it. These men were going to annihilate that doctrine and that incident of the gospel. A Frenchman said it took twelve fishermen to build up Christ's religion, but one Frenchman pulled it down. From Calvary this doctrine rolled along the stream of time, through the eighteen hundred years, down to us, and West got at it and began to look at the evidence; but instead of his being able to cope with it he found it perfectly overwhelming--the proof that Christ had risen, that He had come out of the sepulcher and ascended to heaven and led captivity captive. The light dawned upon him, and he became an expounder of the word of God and a champion of Christianity; And Lord Lyttleton, that infidel and skeptic hadn't been long at the conversion of Saul before the God of Saul broke upon his sight, and he too, began to preach.

The bodies of the elect, after this life, in the kingdom of heaven, shall be like the glorious body of Christ. So Paul saith, "Christ Jesus our Lord shall change our vile bodies, that they may be like his glorious body." Now, the resemblance between Christ's body and ours standeth in these things: as Christ's body is incorruptible, so shall our bodies be void of all corruption; as Christ's body is immortal, so ours in the kingdom of heaven shall never die; as Christ's body is spiritual, so shall ours be made spiritual; as the apostle saith, "It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body;" not because the body shall be changed into a spirit, for it shall remain the same substance, and that forever, but because it shall be preserved by a spiritual and divine manner. For in this life it is preserved by meat, drink, clothing, sleep, physic, rest, and diet; but after, without all these means, the life of the body shall be continued, and body and soul keep together by the immediate power of God's spirit for ever and ever. Thus the body of Christ is now preserved in heaven, and so shall the bodies of the saints be after the day of judgment. Furthermore, as Christ's body is now a shining body, as doth appear by his transfiguration in the Mount, so, in all likelihood, after the resurrection, the bodies of the elect shall be shining bright, always remaining the same substance. Lastly, as Christ's body, after it rose again from the grave, had this property of agility besides swiftness, to pass from earth to the third heaven, being in distance many thousand miles from us, and that without a violence, so shall the bodies of the saints; for, being glorified, they shall be able as well to ascend upward as to go downward, and to move without violence, and that very swiftly. W. Perkins.

Even in a moral point of view, I think the analogies derived from the transformation of insects admit of some beautiful applications, which have not been neglected by pious entomologists. The three states of the caterpillar, larva, and butterfly, have, since the time of the Greek poets, been applied to typify the human being, — its terrestrial form, apparent death, and ultimate celestial destination; and it seems more extraordinary that a sordid and crawling worm should become a beautiful and active fly, that an inhabitant of the dark and fetid dung-hill should in an instant entirely change its form, rise into the blue air, and enjoy the sun-beams, than that a being whose pursuits here have been after an undying name, and whose purest happiness has been derived from the acquisition of intellectual power and finite knowledge, should rise hereafter into a state of being where universality is no longer a name, and ascend to the source of unbounded power and infinite wisdom. Sir H. Davy.

One of the most wonderful passages in the life-history of the infusoria is the encysting process which at certain times they undergo, and which serves to preserve them under circumstances which do not permit the continuance of their ordinary activity. Previous to the formation of the cyst, the movements of the animal gradually diminish, and finally cease altogether: its form becomes more rounded; its oval aperture closes; and its cilia are either lost or retracted. The surface of the body then exudes a gelatinous excretion, which hardens around it so as to form a complete coffin-like case, in which the torpid animal remains embedded until the fostering influences of warmth and humidity again recall it to an active life. Hartwig.

When we pluck down a house, with intent to rebuild it, or repair the ruins of it, we warn the inhabitants out of it, lest they should be soiled with the dust and rubbish, or offended with the noise, and so, for a time, provide some other place for them; but, when we have new trimmed and dressed up the house, then we bring them back to a better habitation. Thus God, when he overturneth this rotten room of our flesh, calleth out the soul for a little time, and lodgeth it with himself in some corner of his kingdom, repaireth the imperfections of our bodies against the resurrection, and then, having made them beautiful, yea, glorious and incorruptible, he doth put our souls back again into their acquainted mansions. Chrysostom.

Madame de Gasparin visited a crypt at Palermo, where thousands of skeletons, in every variety of position, were seen. There were the mingled bones and the nameless dust, an indistinguishable mass! She took a handful of the dust, gazed upon it, and was filled with doubt of the possibility of the resurrection of the dead. She hastened back into the daylight, when she suddenly saw the symbol I. N. R. L.; and a voice echoed in her heart, "Believest thou that I am able to do this?" She responded, "Yea, verily, Thou wilt do it;" and from that day forth never doubted the doctrine of the resurrection.

RESURRECTION, Harvest of the Looking at those grassy mounds in the light of this truth, the eye of faith sees them change into a field sown with the seeds of immortality. Blessed field! What flowers shall spring there! What a harvest shall be gathered there! In the neighboring fields, "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap;" but here how great the difference between what is sown amid mourners' tears, and what shall be reaped amid angels' joys! between the poor body that we restore to the earth, and the noble form that shall spring from its ashes! Those who saw Lazarus' putrid corpse, with health glowing on its cheek, saw nothing to match the change the grave shall work on these mouldering bones. Dr. Guthrie.