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Jesus, Our Conqueror
Pastor Floyd's last message from Three Days
$6.00 — $12.00
We do celebrate today that Jesus, He is our Conqueror. The Bible says in the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which is the last book in the entire Bible, the following words written in the 1st chapter, reading verse 17 and verse 18. The Apostle John writes, and he said, “When I saw Him,” referring to Jesus, “I fell at His feet as though dead. But He laid His right hand on me saying ‘Fear not. I am the first and the last, and the living One. I die and behold I am alive forevermore. And I have the keys of death and Hades.”
I hold in my hand today that master key of this campus. This key has been entrusted to me because of my role as pastor. This key is able to take me wherever I want to go or need to go. This key gives to me the authority and the access to do what it is needed that this key can accomplish, authority and access.
That would be true about the key or keys that you would have in your life. Whether your house is being paid for, or your car is being paid for, as long as you make those payments, and as long as you have it paid off, whichever one, you will be given the key, a key to each one. And you have been given that key because you are paying to have the authority for its usage. And it will give you access wherever you need to go.
The Scripture was very clear. Jesus said, “I have the keys of death and Hades.” Why did Jesus have the keys to death and Hades? Because Jesus conquered death, hell and eternity. Jesus has the keys to death and to Hades. What does all that mean? In the passage here the Bible says that when John saw the Revelation of Jesus, he was absolutely overcome, and overwhelmed.
Now what is interesting about this is that John had a very tight relationship with Jesus Christ. It was John who when he was writing his gospel referred to himself in the gospel as being the one that Jesus loved. It was John, who really believed that he had seen Jesus, and that Jesus was the Messiah, but also He was fully man. And John was very committed to talking about that because Jesus said we handled the word of life.
But also what we must understand it was John who on the early morning over 2000 years ago had heard that Jesus, His body was gone from the tomb. He and Peter ran together. In fact, John told us at least a couple of times in John 20 that he outran Peter. He wanted everyone to know his athletic ability. And he wrote it that way. But the Scripture also says that he stooped in and he looked into the tomb. He didn’t go in until after Peter went in first. And they discovered together that Jesus was not there, that something had happened to the body of Jesus Christ.
You see it was John who had seen Jesus even after Jesus had been raised from the dead, just following the empty tomb experience. So all of a sudden in the writings here, something had changed dramatically. He had seen Jesus in His earthly body. He had seen Jesus in His resurrected body. But this time in Revelation 1 everything had changed, and when he saw Jesus in His glorified body, the Bible says that as soon as he saw Him, and heard Him speak, He became like a dead man, and he fell.
When you look in the construction in the original language you will discover the following: that fear was gripping John like never before, and that fear was progressing, and progressing, and progressing to where it absolutely, absolutely just dominated him, and all of a sudden Jesus took his hand, and He put His right hand on John, and He told John stop fearing now John! Right in the midst of your fear you stop it! I have the keys to death and to Hades.
I wonder what all that means? I wonder what that means to you and it means to me? It appears to me that that Jesus wanted to encourage us and you know what His words were? Powerful words. There’s no place in life, death or eternity that Jesus has not been. And when you look at death and Hades and you look at Jesus having the keys to that, meaning authority over them, Jesus was giving us an encouraging word. There’s no place in your life. There’s no place in your death, and there’s no place even in eternity that Jesus has not been!
Why? Because Jesus overcame death, hell, and even the grave when He was bodily raised from the dead on that early morning over 2000 years ago from the tomb of Joseph of Arimethea. And the message that gives to you and me is a powerful message of the Lord Jesus Christ, and you see the message, you feel the pulse beat of what He was saying because Jesus was telling us: I have been where you are and where you are going, there is no reason to fear. I have been where you are in your life. I have been where you are even in your death, and what Jesus is saying is I have authority over them all, and I now have the keys! And no man can take them away! And Jesus was giving us His heart. I’ve been where you are. I’ve been where you’re going, and there’s no reason to fear.
I wonder when you break all that up and you really go down a little bit deeper in the passage what is Jesus also telling us? He is telling us that because He has the keys to death and Hades, there is:
1. Nothing to fear in life, and then He declares Himself why. I am the Living One. The Lord was telling us guys there’s no reason to fear in life. I am the Living One. Now in Revelation chapter 1, verse 17 Jesus declares Himself and He says I am the Alpha and the Omega. Which means I am the beginning and the end. And He says the one who is, who was, and who is to come. That is a statement about the eternality of Jesus that He is eternal. You see some of us imagine that Jesus was created. Jesus wasn’t created, Jesus is the Creator! And Jesus was Creator and now we see Him in the Revelation as being Conqueror! And He declares Himself I am the Living One!
The Scripture here is very clear when Jesus identified Himself as the Living One. You see we have to understand that Jesus was fully God and He was fully man. We do not serve a Jesus Christ or a God who is so far up here He doesn’t know where you live. He knows where you live. He knows all of your struggles. He knows all of your pain. He knows all that life can offer you.
Think about the rejection that Christ faced. Think about the loneliness that He must have felt. Think about the abandonment that He sensed. Think about the scorn and the hurt of people towards Him. When you think about all of that and then you think about how He bore the wrath of God, His Father, for the sins of the world, what Jesus is telling us is that there is nothing in life that I cannot identify with you, and that even though life tried to get the best of Me, I did not let life crush Me.
And I ask you today how overwhelming is your life? Do you feel like problems are above and beyond? That you are scaling mountains that you’ve never been able to climb before, or never been asked to climb? Maybe you’ve been in the depths of the valley whereby you have never walked before. I have some wonderful news for you today that because Jesus holds the keys to death and Hades, He says to you I’ve been where you’ve been. There is no and nothing to fear in this life because I am the Living One! The only people in this room who need to fear life are those who are walking through life without a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
The only people who need to fear life today are those who have never been forgiven of their sin, have never been washed by the powerful blood of Jesus Christ that was sung about a moment ago. That has never received the glorious work of the cross of Jesus Christ that was had a huge exclamation point put on it when Jesus was raised bodily from the dead. I have some wonderful news today, you do not have to walk alone in this life, and you do not have to fear what life has to offer you. It doesn’t matter what it is because Jesus said I am the Living One.
But Jesus also said there’s:
2. Nothing to fear in death: I died and am alive forevermore. You know that’s a pretty powerful statement. I mean you think about what Jesus said, I died and I am alive forevermore! Jesus was saying I have the keys to death and to Hades, and yes I did die, and yes, I was crucified, but I overcame it! And even in the worst and the extremities of death like crucifixion, there is nothing to fear in death because even I died just like you will die, and I am alive forevermore.
Jesus in the first of Revelation in verse 5 gives to us a powerful, powerful word. Jesus said, “I am the firstborn of the dead.” What does it mean for Jesus to be the firstborn of the dead? What that means is that Jesus Christ was the first one who died, was buried, was raised from the dead, and is still alive today to talk about it! And what it also means is that the firstborn of the dead means that there will be more to come in the future! Which is exactly what the Word of God says about all of us who may know Jesus in a personal way. Who may have had our sins forgiven, and who may have a personal relationship with Christ.
Do you know what the Scripture tells us? The Scripture tells us if we know Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord one day when we die 2 Corinthians 5:8 says that we will be absent from the body, and we will be present with the Lord. In other words, whether you die in a hospital room or on the pavement of an interstate, or you drop dead in your home, I want to tell you today if you know Christ as Lord the moment your spirit leaves that body, that body is dead, dead, dead, dead, but your spirit immediately ascends to be with the Father in Heaven. And you will be alive!
But the Scripture goes on to tell us even another powerful truth about this. The Bible tells us in the 4th chapter of the book of 1st Thessalonians that one day when the Lord returns, even as we sang about a moment ago, one day when the Lord returns, listen to this, He will walk into this world, and He will disrupt every cemetery, every sea, every ocean, every lake that has the body of anybody who has ever been born again by the Spirit, and forgiven by the blood of Jesus Christ! And He will calls those bodies out of the depths of the ocean, out of the depths of the lake, out of the depths of the ground, and He will raise those bodies up, those who cannot walk on their own, He will raise them up to walk again! And to be joined together in heaven with the Spirit that is already with the Lord! And that’s what the Bible promises!
I’m telling you today heaven is for real for those of us who have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. A book was released in the latter part of the year in 2010. It’s a book called Heaven is For Real. It was featured the other day in USA Today. It has been the number one best selling book the last 3 out of 4 weeks. It is a book that records the life and the near death experience of a 4 year old who came near death due to a ruptured appendix. He comes out of that and he begins to talk about what he saw, and he said he saw heaven. And he talks about the reality of heaven, and he tells it to his father, and his father writes down what his son tells him. It’s the number one book in the history of Thomas Nelson Publishers, which tells you that there’s an enormous interest out here in secular America and Pagan world for something to be known about heaven.
Now whether or not you believe all that the little boy stated, and whether or not all that would fit through the grid of God’s Word, let me just say this to you today, the issue is not what the book Heaven Is For Real says about heaven; the issue is what this book, the Word of God, says that heaven is for real and there is only way to heaven, and it is through the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who paid the ultimate price for your sin, who conquered sin, who conquered death, who conquered grave, and who has bodily been raised to be now with the Father in heaven! I’m telling you Jesus is saying to you and saying to me today there is nothing to fear in life, I am the Living One! There is nothing fear in death: I died and am alive forevermore.
And Jesus is also telling us there is:
3. Nothing to fear in eternity: I have the keys of Death and Hades.
Amazing, isn’t it? One little set of keys having such a powerful, powerful meaning. Hades is the place of the wicked, so I’m glad because I’m not wicked. No, let me re-identify that for greater clarity: Hades is the place of those who die without Jesus as Lord and Savior. Those of us who die in Jesus, and we have the personal relationship we enter into eternity to heaven immediately. But those who die without Jesus Christ, those who die without having their sins forgiven, those who die without ever having a changed life by the power of Jesus Christ, they die, and they enter into Hades, the place where the wicked live for all of eternity who do not have that relationship with Jesus!
Hades is also translated as hell. It’s a place of agony; a place of torment, a place that the Scripture is very clear about was not originally prepared for any of us. That’s why the cross was given, but that’s where those who do not embrace the work of the cross, and who do not receive the power of Jesus Christ in your life. That’s where you would spend eternity. And the Scripture here tells us that Jesus said there’s nothing to fear in eternity because I have conquered both death and hell.
You see I believe the Scripture is clear over in Ephesians chapter 4, as well as Colossians chapter 2. The Bible talks about how when Jesus died He descended into the depths, and that even in Colossians 2 it says that He stripped off the power and the authority of all of the demonic forces of hell! All of that occurred, and now He holds the keys over death, and over Hades. The great news for you today is you don’t have to die and spend eternity in hell. The cross was given to you and to me so that you might live forever, and have all of your sins forgiven. WE might want to think about the joy of how heaven is for real, but we also need to be grieved that even hell is for real.
I’m reminded of what Jesus talked about over in the 16th chapter of the gospel of Matthew. He forecast that there would be a group of people one day who would emerge and they were going to be called the church. All that happened before the church ever became into reality. It was not until after the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus, and even the ascension of Jesus that the church was born. Remember that occurred in Acts chapter 2. Before then it was the people of God, or those who were followers of Christ, Disciples of Christ, but now everything had changed. And Jesus said there was going to come a day when the church was born, and it was going to be such a powerful, moving entity, and spiritual force in the culture and life that not even hell could come against it and win. Wow.
Through His death, through His burial, and His resurrection all that was secured, but then He said in the 16th chapter these words to His disciples. And He said I’m telling you there will come a day when I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. We’re not talking about the keys over death and Hades. That came later. But He’s talking about the keys to the kingdom of heaven. And He was giving it to the church that question. Who was He giving it to? The church! And what were the keys to the kingdom of heaven? You know what those keys were? Those keys were that Jesus loves you. That Jesus died for your sin. That Jesus substituted in your place and bore the wrath of God on your behalf. It’s called Jesus and His gospel.
What is the gospel? Paul said the gospel is His death, His burial, and His resurrection. The death indicating the forgiveness of sin. His burial where business was done with the satanic, with the enemy, stripped them of all authority! But on the third day when He was raised, that’s the day He gives life, forgiveness, hope, heaven. It’s the keys of the kingdom of heaven.
Religion will not unlock heaven, a personal relationship with Jesus will. Unless you are an expert technologically, you probably cannot hack my email account. And the only way you will have direct access to my email account is when you put in my password. What is my password? I’m not going to tell you. But you know what? God says we can all have the destination of eternity in heaven, but you’ve got to go to the password, and there’s only one accessible password. It’s Jesus Christ, and what He’s done for you in your life. He died in your place. He has been willing to forgive you of your sins. He is willing to bear your pain, and your sorrow, and your struggle, and if you will yield your life to Him, the most glorious day in this world will be the day when you receive Christ into your life.
Sins forgiven. Him coming to live within you. Change occurring like you’ve never experienced before. And the promise of heaven when you die. Who would have thought it when Jesus said I have the keys to death and to Hades and will give to you for the cross the keys of the kingdom of heaven?
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