March 30, 2024 - The Political Cesspool - James Edwards
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You're listening to the Liberty News Radio Network, and this is the Political Cesspool.
The Political Cesspool, known across the South and worldwide as the South's foremost populist conservative radio program.
And here to guide you through the murky waters of the political cesspool is your host, James Edwards.
The sea there was great and race was really.
It has
been a tremendous honor to present March Around The World to you, the 2024 installment of this very special series that we do here at TPC.
And now we transition fully into the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
This is Easter weekend.
And joining us now live as he does every Easter and Christmas is Pastor Brett McCatey.
He is the pastor of Christ the King Reformed Church in Charlotte, Michigan.
And he will now present to us a special Easter message documenting the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Pastor, the floor is entirely yours.
And thank you so much for coming back to us.
He is risen.
He is risen indeed.
Thank you for the opportunity to the political cesspool and thankful for all the listeners out there who deem it worthy to tune their dial in and listen to this presentation.
I want to start by just engaging with where we're at in Resurrection Day 2024.
Of course, we must continue to be mindful, and this audience certainly is, where we're at, how it is in this cultural battle that Easter has now been caught up in this cultural battle.
On this Resurrection Sunday, we are mindful of the fact that there has been a salvo fired at the Christian faith by our statist government.
Despite the fact that Easter is one of the two high days in the Christian calendar, it's been decided that it's going to be eclipsed per President Biden's claim that this is going to be Transgender Day of Visibility.
This is nothing, of course, but an assault on biblical Christianity.
This is akin to how the French philosophers, Philosophes, tried to change out the Christian calendar during the French Revolution.
When you combine this fact that he's declared it Transgender Day of Visibility, when you combine that with the fact that he disallowed any Christian art to be part of the Easter A contest, it's pretty clear that what's happening is that woke entity as the state religion is being lifted up over against Christianity.
And frankly, this is statist blasphemy.
And it demonstrates for us again that governments are never secular.
They're never treating all religions the same.
It's always the case that they have a particular religion and God that they're serving.
And our current federal government is revealing it's the servant of the religion and God of what I've called woke anity.
It continues not least by claiming Easter Sunday is transgender day of visibility.
And in doing so, it makes war on God and by extension, God's people.
And so we should be rightly as Christians disturbed by what they're trying to do to this high day on the Christian calendar.
But we would note here a good news.
Christianity is an anvil that many a pagan hammer has worn itself out upon.
And it will be so again in this case as well.
Christ is king, and quite to the chagrin of Ben Shapiro and many evangelicals, and as king, the celebration of the resurrection will one day cover the globe.
And so with that as kind of a reminder of where we're at in the cultural hour, we look to the resurrection.
And to do so, we're going to look at the Heidelberg Catechism and what it teaches on the Resurrection Sunday.
The Heidelberg Catechism comes to us from the 16th century, and it's a faithful question and answer format that represents what the scriptures teach on the matter of many doctrines, but in this case, on the resurrection.
And question 45, it asks us, what does the resurrection of Christ profit us?
And it answers this way.
First, by the resurrection, he has overcome death, that he might make us partakers of that righteousness, which he has purchased for us by his death.
Secondly, we are also by his power raised up to a new life.
And lastly, the resurrection of Christ is a sure pledge of our own blessed resurrection.
As we come to Lord's Day 17 on the resurrection, we want to fill in some blanks and give some background to the resurrection that the Lord's Day 17 in the Heidelberg Catechism doesn't provide.
Of course, we remember that the resurrection is the heart and substance of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
We find it as a twofold message throughout the book of Acts.
When they went preaching the gospel in that missionary book of Acts, there was a two-fold theme they came up with, and that twofold theme was the resurrection and the kingdom of God.
This is why, for example, the apostle could declare later in 1 Corinthians 15, if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty.
And so it was the conviction that the resurrection was the heart of the gospel that spurred the apostles as they fanned out over the known world at that time, preaching Christ and the resurrection.
And it starts on the day of Pentecost, my friends.
Peter says there in his sermon, after properly pinning the responsibility of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and the Jews, he says, and there in the book of Acts, he speaks of whom God raised up, referring to Jesus, having loosed the pains of death because it was not possible that he should be held by it.
In that same chapter in chapter 2, Peter once again says, this Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses.
When we continue through the book of Acts and we see the centrality of the resurrection, we know it again in Acts 3.
When God heals the lame man through the ministries of Peter and John, Peter says, but you denied speaking to the Jews, the Holy One and the just, and asked for a murder to be granted to you.
And you killed the Prince of life, whom God, then he says, raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses.
Then again in chapter 4, verse 10, in an explanation to the Jews and the Jewish leadership, Peter again speaks of the resurrection.
He says, let it be known to you all and to all the people of Israel, but by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by him this man stands here before you whole.
And here I'm just giving a Whitman sampler of how central the idea of the resurrection was to the gospel of Jesus Christ there in the book of Acts.
And I'm doing this so that we see that our Christianity that's absent with the resurrection at the center is really not a Christianity at all.
And so part of my plea is for us to return to the resurrection, to understand the thrust of that.
And that's what I hope to at least do in part this evening.
As we continue through the book of Acts, we look at chapter 4.
After being released from prison for preaching the resurrection, we read that the same apostles with great power gave witness to the resurrection.
As Acts begins to concentrate more on St. Paul, we see that St. Paul puts the resurrection front and center when he deals with the Jews.
In Perga, St. Paul tells, claims that the Jews condemned and slew Jesus, adding, but God raised him from the dead.
He was seen for many days by those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses to the people.
And we declare to you glad tidings, that promise which was made to the fathers.
God has fulfilled this for us, their children, and that he has raised up Jesus, as it's also written in the second Psalm.
You are my son, today I have begotten.
Don't miss here that the resurrection of the Lord Jesus is presented as the fulfillment of the promise of the gospel.
And in quoting Psalm 2, we learn that through the resurrection, God has begotten his son.
That is the centrality of the resurrection.
Where else might we turn this missionary book of Acts to see the centrality of the resurrection?
And we're noting this because if it's a centrality for the apostles' message, it should be the centrality for all Christians today.
And we should find ourselves returning to it over and over again to meditate and to concentrate on the centrality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
In the synagogue at Thessalonica in Acts 17, Paul quotes from the Old Testament scriptures and explains and demonstrates that Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead.
And saying, this Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ.
When we get to Athens, continuing with the missionary fanning out, we read there in Athens, Paul speaks in his preaching, God has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained.
He has given assurance of this to all by raising him from the dead.
And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked.
Even before kings, when Paul is before King Agrippa, put there by the plans, the plotting of the Jews, he's now in bondage, and he declares to Agrippa that the Christ would suffer, that he would be the first to rise from the dead and would proclaim light to the Jewish people unto the Gentiles.
And then finally, of course, there is that 1 Corinthians passage.
Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preach to you.
And this gospel is briefly summarized in the words: how Christ died for our sins according to the scripture, that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scripture.
This is why the motif has been, Christ is risen, he is risen indeed.
And this is what we celebrate on this resurrection Easter Sunday.
Just hours from now, it's Resurrection Day as we celebrate it, and we celebrate it tonight with Pastor Brett McAtee, and he will continue his message, which is sure to stir the hearts of all believers.
One episode is taking, everybody.
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As there I cried, dear Jesus, come and heal my broken spirit.
And somehow, Jesus came and brought to me the victory.
Oh, victory in Jesus, my Savior forever.
Peace on me and all me with his redeeming world.
We love the end.
If you're a believer, as I am, ladies and gentlemen, you could do a lot worse tonight than having with us live on your radio from Northern Ireland, Pastor Jim Dowsend, and now from Charlotte, Michigan.
Pastor Brett McAtee.
He is the husband of a wife without peer, as we like to remind you, the father of three children who walk as heroes in the land, the grandfather of nine.
He's the author of Iron Inc, which is committed to thinking God's thoughts after him.
He has pastored Christ the King Reformed Church there in Michigan for over 20 years.
SPLC has been after him.
They've all been after him.
This is a brick-and-mortar congregation of believers.
And if you can't find a worthy congregation of believers in your area, I know TPC listeners who tune in to Pastor Brett every week at charlottereformed.org.
Spelled just like Charlotte, North Carolina, as we say down in Dixieland, CharlotteReformed.org.
And he is presenting us with the biblical account of the resurrection of Jesus Christ here and now tonight.
It is Resurrection Day weekend.
Tomorrow we celebrate it.
Pastor, back to you.
Thank you.
So we continue.
We've seen that the resurrection is central to the gospel message.
And we want to talk about briefly now that it was a bodily, or as some like to say, a literal resurrection.
So that the body that came out of the tomb was likewise a human body that came out of the tomb, albeit glorified.
And we need to say this because Legion is the name of clergy and so-called theologians who deny the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.
On one hand, they will affirm the resurrection of Christ, but on the other hand, they will define, redefine the word resurrection so that what they mean by that word is antithetical to what the scriptures and the faithful church mean by that word.
As in so many other examples, many in the church today use linguistic deception to redefine the truth of the resurrection to make it mean imaginary or pretend resurrection.
And so we're left to not being able to give men the benefit of the doubt when they affirm the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
We have to go on and ask if the resurrected Christ ate fish with his disciples.
We have to ask that the resurrected Christ put on display for his disciples his scars and his wounds.
We have to practice a hermeneutic of suspicion with many professional clergymen, lest we be taken in by this clergy grip of affirming the idea of the resurrection while denying the meaning of the resurrection, because the church is tock full of professional people who talk about the resurrection but deny the supernatural foundation of it by embracing any number of fanciful naturalistic understandings of this so as to avoid the supernatural character of the resurrection.
And in order just to back up, let me give you a couple quotes of the kind of people I'm talking about.
Here's a theologian named Walter Bannon.
He wrote, No more do we consider the fact that the Christian church is guided in her faith by an ever-present active Lord.
We are not dependent upon the realistic, materialistic conception that the same body which died in the tree on the cross after three days in the grave began to function again.
Another theologian named Walter Kuhneth added, to insist upon the historic character of the resurrection has the result of objectifying it.
That means that the assertion of its historicality leads to an irresistible process of dissolution, which ominously threatens the reality of the resurrection itself.
And what he's saying here is that if we consider the resurrection to be historical, the way that we consider the landing of the Mayflower to be historical, we are led to a position where the resurrection is threatened.
And so other words, he would affirm the resurrection, but he wants to deny the supernatural presuppositions behind it and make it continually naturalistic.
And we have to say, my friends, these people who do this, they claim Christ, but it's a Christ of a different stripe.
It's not the Christ of the Bible.
The Christ of the Bible is crucified for our sins and then bodily and literally arises from the grave so that he can eat fish with his disciples, so that he can display the wounds and show that he is very man and very man still, albeit glorified.
These are all these doubts that come up are all expressions from a chap named Bart Carl Bart.
Many of you perhaps have heard of him.
He said, if there is to be a genuine hope on the basis of Christ's resurrection, this can only be if orthodoxy, that means you and I, with all of its rationalizations, be brushed away, which is just a way of saying that the physicality of Christ's resurrection is not true.
So we see that there's enemies within our own church, not only enemies without.
And we need to be very clear and precise when we talk about the kind of resurrection we believe in.
Because believing in a pretend resurrection or a Christ who resurrects or rises into history or a Christ that somehow is imaginary or pretend is not a Christ that is going to provide salvation.
And this is a real threat in the church today, although perhaps many people don't realize that.
But we press on for this particular, at this particular point and look at the catechism itself.
The catechism starts by teaching us that this doctrine of the resurrection, by this doctrine of the resurrection, by the resurrection he's overcome death, referring to Christ, that he might make us partakers of that righteousness which he has purchased us for us by his death.
They cite then 1 Corinthians 15, 16 to sustain their point as growing up out of scripture.
There in 1 Corinthians 15 it says, for the dead rise not, then Christ is not raised.
Of course, the whole premise of all of 1 Corinthians 15 is that Christ is raised and has overcome death.
And we get this even more explicitly in Revelation 1.18 with Jesus saying, I died, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and Hades.
So we are profited as Christians by believing the resurrection of Jesus in as much as he overcame death.
But let's talk a wee bit about this resurrection that overcame death.
We have to understand, my friends, that when Jesus rose again, he rose as belonging entirely to a new creation, the age to come.
Christ's resurrection finds him in his new creation body.
Christ's resurrection and overcoming death lives and operates now in the new creation.
Christ has arose to a new creation reality.
It is why we can talk about Jesus having a glorified body.
This explains passages like that Sunday evening, the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders.
And suddenly, suddenly, Jesus was standing there among them.
Peace be with you, he said.
And Jesus has abilities now because he's in a new creation body.
He's in a glorified body.
And now he has abilities.
There is continuity with his humanity before the crucifixion, but there's also discontinuity as well.
He is now a new creation, all that man was intended to be and what we will one day be ourselves.
So by his resurrection, our Lord and Master overcame death.
And the catechism says it's with this purpose that he might make us partakers of that righteousness which he purchased by his death.
Here is the great theme of scripture of the gospel.
The substitutionary atonement is here brought forth.
Christ died the death that sinners earned, and that should have been ours.
Christ's resurrection is to us the seal and the confirmation that his death on the cross is in our place satisfied the just wrath of God by purchasing our right standing via the price of his own blood.
And through the power of the resurrection, we have confirmed for us that we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
If there had been no resurrection, there would have been no confirmation that Christ's death was a substitute for us, that Christ's righteousness had been put to our account, and that our sins had been placed upon Christ.
But with the resurrection, all the promises of God are yes and amen.
And we know that what God promises regarding being delivered from sin has been accomplished because a substitute has been set forth and the resurrection confirms that.
And that's why Resurrection Sunday is joyous.
It gives us happy feet.
It causes us to rejoice of all the gifts that we have, chief of which is that we have peace with God because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
More than that, the catechism teaches us here, following scripture, that we profit in the doctrine of the resurrection because it declares to us that we wear the righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The resurrection that we celebrate tomorrow in a few hours reminds us that when God looks upon us, he sees us as not besotted with the sin that we contend against daily, but rather he sees us as clothed and garmented in the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
In God's judicial reckoning, we have been declared righteous in Christ Jesus.
We may not feel that way.
The accuser of the brethren may scorn us and rub our noses in our sin and those things that we know to be true about us.
But the resurrection reminds us that we are partakers of that righteousness which Christ purchased by his death in our place.
God in Christ does all the saving.
God in Christ imputes to us, reckons to us, puts to our account his righteousness, and the resurrection confirms all of this.
And we are a people who rejoice.
My friends, can you see why the catechism following scripture here says that this truth is a great profit to us?
How can it not be but a profit to us to know that we are partakers of Christ's righteousness?
How can it not be but a profit to know that because of that resurrection, nothing can separate us from the love of God?
It's because of that resurrection of Christ that our sins are taken away, but also that our guilt is taken away, so that we can no longer be manipulated by those who want to lay guilt upon us.
That's false guilt.
We can no longer be manipulated by them to behave in certain ways that they want.
I'm speaking of politicians here because Christ has taken our guilt away and we no longer have to deal with it.
And that my sin and my guild is gone, and so we rejoice in all that God has provided in Christ.
Protecting your liberties, you're listening to Liberty News Radio USA News.
I'm Laura Winters.
President Biden telling reporters he plans on visiting the port of Baltimore where the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed next week.
Large cranes on barges being brought in by the U.S. Navy.
The goal is to remove all of the heavy metal from the collapsed bridge and get the area open as soon as possible.
Here is Maryland Governor Democrat Wes Moore.
With a salvage operation this complex, and frankly, with a salvage operation this unprecedented, you need to plan for every single moment.
And every time you take action to move a piece of wreckage, you understand that that requires you to reassess the situation.
Former President Trump is hoping to raise more money than President Biden did in New York at a huge upcoming fundraiser in Palm Beach on April 6th.
The Biden campaign raising a record $25 million at the event at Radio City Music Hall.
Former Presidents Obama and Clinton attending, along with Lizzo and Queen Latifah.
Trump says he hopes to raise more than $30 million at the party at Mar-a-Lago.
Now, the fundraiser will be hosted by New York hedge fund billionaire John Paulson, who has been mentioned by Trump as a possible Treasury Secretary if he is elected in November.
In other news, the Biden administration on Friday authorizing billions of dollars in aid to Israel, including bombs and fighter jets.
This is an employee at the State Department stepping down because she doesn't like the Biden administration's support of Israel.
Here's USA's Ryan Daniels: a State Department official stepping down to protest U.S. support of Israel.
This week, Anel Shaleen announced her resignation from her position with the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.
She said she could no longer work for the administration as she says it has enabled Israeli atrocities in Gaza.
I'm Ryan Daniels.
And I'm Laura Winters, USA News.
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Death cannot keep its prey.
Jesus, my Savior.
He tore the bars away.
Jesus, my Lord.
From the grave he arose with a mighty triumph over his forehead.
He rose a victor from the dark domain and he lives forever with his saints to reign.
He arose, he arose.
Ladies and gentlemen, happy Easter, happy Resurrection Day to all of you.
And one more time, a big thanks to all of the guests who appeared this month during our march around the world.
It started in Croatia during the first hour of the March 2nd broadcast.
It officially ended last hour in Puerto Rico on tonight's broadcast, March the 30th.
But Tonight, unlike the last few years when Easter Sunday coincided with our Confederate History Month coverage, this year, Easter falls on the very last day of March.
And so we end our march around the world tonight with Brett McEtee up in Michigan and with the Christ the King Reformed Church.
If you go to their website, and I encourage that you do at charlotte reformed.org, you will find there brand new posting as of today, Good Friday 2024, the cross and reconciliation.
Whatever you do, be sure to visit charlotte reformed.org.
That is the home base on the internet for Christ the Kingdom Reformed Church in Charlotte, Michigan, pastored by our good friend, Brett McAdie, who continues to share with us the good news of Christ's resurrection live on the radio tonight.
Pastor, back to you.
Amen.
What a privilege to be doing this and to have this opportunity.
We continue with looking at the catechism.
And part of what I'm trying to do tonight, as well as tell the story of the resurrection, is to once again have an appreciation for our catechisms and our concessions, which I understand that some traditions don't allow for.
But I believe that we are beggaring ourselves when we don't consider the importance of the confessions and the catechisms.
And we're looking at the Heilberg Catechism, and it's bringing forth this idea of doctrine.
And that's another aspect of what I'm trying to do tonight, is to demonstrate that doctrine isn't stale or boring or dry stuff.
And the doctrine that is put forth in question 45 is the doctrine of the resurrection.
And interesting about the Heilberg Catechism here is that it asks, what does the resurrection of Christ profit us?
It wants us to know as Christians that these doctrines have, to put it in a rather bald way, they have a cash value.
They're good for us.
They help us.
They aid us.
And they said, first of all, and we've looked at the first way that we profit from the resurrection, they said is by his resurrection, he's overcome death, that he might make us partakers of that righteousness, which he had purchased for us by his death.
And that was the first one that we considered.
Here they give now a second reason, a second reason why the resurrection as a doctrine profits us.
And the reason I think that we need to anchor ourselves in the scripture and in these doctrines is that modern Christianity tends to be very emotive and very feeling-oriented and very emotional.
But the historic church has always lodged its understanding of scripture and of doctrine as the basis for our maturation and sanctification in Christ.
Yes, feelings are important, but they're the caboose.
They follow the proper understanding of the doctrines of Jesus Christ.
And so we look at this second profit that we gain by the resurrection, by the doctrine of the resurrection.
And that second profit that we gain is that by his power, we are raised up to a new life.
Here they appeal to, that is, the catechizers appeal to Romans chapter 6, verse 4 to anchor this assertion.
Therefore, we are buried with him by baptism and the death, that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should walk in newness of life.
Christ died so that he might have a people who were, as Titus says, zealous for good works.
In Ephesians, Paul says, we are Christ's poetry, his workmanship, created for good works.
And so, part of the truth of the resurrection is that we are raised to a new life.
And because of Christ's resurrection, because we're raised with him, we now walk in a way that is different.
We have a conversation in life that is different.
Our lifestyle is different.
way that we lean into life is unique.
Remember a few minutes ago we said that in Christ's resurrection he was raised belonging to a new creation.
And upon Christ's resurrection Christ was and is living in the new heavens and the new earth in that age to come.
He was a member of the new creation.
And now here we learn that we likewise are in an inaugurated sense those who belong to that new creation and belonging to that new creation we should also walk in newness of life.
We are not now what we will yet be, but because we are in Christ, we are not now what we once were when we were dead in our trespasses and sins.
We've been raised to a new life.
Saint Paul can say, talk about this explicitly in the book of Colossians where he reminds us there that Christ has delivered us in the power of darkness to convey us in the kingdom of the Son of his love.
And so we've been put into a different kingdom and being put into a new different kingdom, we live a different life.
We lean into life differently.
We walk as Paul says in newness of life and that's one of the ways that we profit from this doctrine of the resurrection.
You see, by the resurrection, my friends, we have been placed in the new creation into the kingdom of God's dear son to walk in newness of life, which the catechizers quote to sustain this point.
Brethren, my friends, those listening in the audience, we have been resurrected so that our relationship to the old Adam is now superseded by our relationship to Jesus Christ, new Adam.
This explains why the expectation is that we should walk in newness of life.
We are resurrected beings.
And though we're not yet all that we can one day be, as I said, we are being resurrected, we are living a different type of life than those who are outside of Christ.
We are like, and this is one of my favorite works.
I've read all kinds of his works surrounding the novels.
We're like Tolkien's character Legolas, who walked both in two worlds, a seen world and an unseen world.
And we likewise, as Christians who have been resurrected to walk in the newness of life, we live in two worlds at the same time.
We live in this present wicked age, but also by God's grace, we live in the age to come.
And that age to come is pushing back this present wicked age.
And that's part of our post-millennial hope, that optimistic eschatology, that the kingdom of God is going to continue to go forward with might so that the nations of this earth will become the nations of our God.
And all of that is anchored in the resurrected, in the resurrection.
So in some sense, we, as the resurrected, are the bearers of resurrection and of the resurrection life to all that we come in contact with.
So this is a reality that encourages us, just walking in newness of life.
This reality of having been now resurrected with Christ is why Paul can write about our now being seated even in the heavenlies with Christ.
It's why he could write that we have now been translated to the kingdom of God to your son whom he loves.
It's why he could write that our citizenship is in heaven, keeping in mind that heaven is invading this present wicked way age via his resurrected citizenry, the people that belong to his kingdom.
And so we are the resurrected people, and God is using us as his people, his spirit people, his anointed people, to work against the kingdom of darkness.
And if we retire in that, we retreat in that, we're not being faithful to the resurrected life that we've been called to, this newness of life that we've been given.
That's part of the doctrine, part of the way that we profit from the resurrection.
If we profit first by Christ's resurrection, by having the truth of our justification declared, we now profit with the assurance of our ongoing sanctification.
We are going to become more and more like our Lord Jesus Christ.
We are members of a new age and a new kingdom.
And because of that, we are a peculiar people.
And my friends, don't you find that many people find the way that we think, find the way that we lean into life?
Don't you find that they think it's peculiar?
Well, part of that is because of the newness of life that the resurrection has given us.
We are seen as peculiar or odd because we're in Christ and we're operating according to a different fulcrum than what those who are outside of Christ are operating.
So belonging to this resurrection life changes us completely.
It changes our thinking.
It changes our behaving.
It changes our relationship.
It changes all of this so much that to those who are not living the resurrected life or even just beginning, we would say, the resurrected life, we are to them indeed serious.
We're a strange lot.
Because we've been risen with Christ, we seek those things which are above and everything that we handle here.
In other words, in living this newness of life, we take in Christ as king.
And we say along with Candace Owens and the saints throughout the ages, Jesus Christ is indeed king.
And we're not ashamed of that.
And we're not going to be shamed of that by those who have a different religion who want to suggest that somehow by saying Christ is king, that we're being anti-Semites.
I suppose if you think that Christ is king, then to those who would disagree, that would be anti-Semitical.
But we are the resurrected people walking in newness and life.
And because of that, we do go about saying without apology, Christ is king.
And our expectation is that one day every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is king.
Good on you, Pastor, for bringing that up.
Candace Owens, obviously, quite famously was fired this week by Ben Shapiro for having the audacity to admit that Christ is king on Easter weekend and always.
We'll be right back.
One more final segment with Pastor Matt.
Hey there, TPC family.
This is James Edwards, your host of the Political Cesspool.
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Because I know he holds the truth.
And life is worth the living just because he
lives, and I don't think there is any more encouraging message we could share with you to close this program tonight than that he lives.
And as I shared with you, listen, I got to say again, starting in Croatia, ending in Puerto Rico, a whole month.
But God bless Jim Dowson and Pastor McAtee, Brett McAtee tonight for bringing the Easter message to us, the good news of Christ's resurrection.
And as I shared with you last year, I wrote this some years ago, but yesterday, you're listening live tonight.
Yesterday was Good Friday.
That marks the beginning of the weekend where most of the Christian world, I know our Orthodox friends celebrate it a little bit later, but most of the Christian world commemorates what is the pivotal point in history, the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The entirety of time itself is marked by his crucifixion.
Why is this the year 2024, you ask?
Well, you know the answer, don't you?
And imagine, we always lament, and rightly so, the conditions that we are faced with in these days.
But imagine what it must have felt like for his mother, Mary, his disciples, and the small band of family and friends to watch as he agonizingly gasped on the air for air on the cross.
What do you think was going through their minds as they witnessed that most unspeakable act of injustice that the world has ever seen?
And it unfolded right before their eyes.
We find ourselves, and again, I mean, the case of Dries Van Langenhoven in Belgium earlier tonight that we aired on this program.
It is a slow and grinding death for our people, our nations, our culture, our very flesh and blood in this degenerate age.
But, but, at that very darkest of hours, we remember the words spoken to us so long ago at that empty tomb.
He is not here, he is risen.
And believe me, folks, those words strike fear in the heart of our enemies.
And the more we take them to heart, as Jim Dowson was talking about earlier tonight from Northern Ireland, the more that those oppose us lose heart because they know what we too often forget.
It only takes one, Pastor Brett, and it can happen again because it happened before.
And he promised that he would do even greater things through us because he would be working through us.
We would do greater things even than he because he would be working through us.
And that is the message that I, in my meager abilities, leave you on this blessed and happy Easter weekend.
Pastor Brett McAtee, God bless you.
The final word on this show this month, this night, is yours.
Take it away.
Thank you.
I just would like to piggyback a second on that because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, because Christ is king, because Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father, because God is on his throne, Christians never have a reason to be hopeless.
Yes, it may be dark out.
It is indeed dark out.
There are things that I see that all of us see that we just, our jaws are a gape that we can't believe what we're living through.
But yet there is no hopelessness because Christ reigns, Christ rules, and we have no reason to be hopeless because we do not know what God and his sovereignty and his providence is going to provide.
And whatever he provides, you can be sure that it's connected to the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ gives life meaning.
It gives us hope.
And so in the contest that we're currently in, we all need to bank on the fact that Christ is risen.
And we need to allow that to motivate us and to make us have spines of steel to resist whatever the enemy may bring against us, reminding ourselves over and over again that because Christ is risen, I can stand and I will stand.
I don't care what the odds are.
I'm going to stand.
And so we return to this idea of the resurrection of Christ and the fact that we now are living in this newness of life because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
We quote from a chap, a theologian who I like named G.K. Beale.
He demonstrates that what I've been saying in this broadcast is not unique or original to me.
I don't want to be original.
I don't want to be remembered for saying something that nobody ever said before.
And so I try to find good, solid people that echo where I'm going.
In one case, G.K. Beale, he writes, we must not underestimate the resurrection that we've been given in Christ.
As Christ has been raised to a new reality, so Christians united to Christ have been raised to a new reality and are to live their lives in terms of this resurrection, new creational kingdom.
We're to live our lives in terms of this resurrection, new creational kingdom.
And so if others around us, if the larger culture around us is living in the kingdom of darkness, we're the ones who are living our lives in terms of this resurrectional, new creational kingdom because we've been resurrected to newness of life.
And that's one of the things that the doctrine of the resurrection, the truth of the resurrection, profits us.
And so the Heidelberg Catechism is heartwarming.
It's giving us something to grab on to find ourselves encouraged when it's dusk and dark out.
And so the resurrection profits us again, I say, by raising us up with Christ to live a new life.
And that new life resists evil.
That new life draws the proverbial red lines and says this far and no further.
That is the kind of resurrection life that is in each believer that is bound to Christ and is anchored in that resurrection.
Finally, as we look at this catechism, it teaches us that we profit from the resurrection as it's a sure pledge of our blessed resurrection to come.
They anchor that in the scripture by appealing to 1 Corinthians 15.
But now Christ is risen from the dead and has become the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.
And the whole chapter of 1 Corinthians 15 is dealing with the relationship between Christ's resurrection and our coming resurrection from the dead.
And so there's a linkage here that we want to note.
In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul portrays another version of this staggered resurrection fulfillment.
The Messiah is physically resurrected first, and then later his people are raised physically.
Remembering that the Old Testament appeared to prophesy that all of God's people together were to be resurrected as part of one event.
However, St. Paul views the prophecy of the end time resurrected to begin fulfillment in Christ's physical resurrection, which necessitates that the future saints' subsequent physical resurrection had to happen.
In other words, the great event of the final resurrection had begun in Christ.
But since the event was not completed in the resurrection of others, the completion of that prophesied event had to come at some point in the future.
And because of that, because Christ is the first fruits, we have a certainty that we likewise are going to follow.
And so this gives us an ability to cheerfully come to the end of our days and to be able to come to the cheerful end of our days and to deal with our own mortality because of the certainty of the resurrection.
And the certainty of that resurrection is lodged in the fact that Christ was indeed resurrected.
He was the first fruits.
And if the first fruits is resurrected, the implication is that everything else has to follow.
And you, my friend, if you're trusting in Christ, is part of everything else.
It is this truth of the resurrection that as a minister allows me to bear up under the grief and sadness when conducting funerals.
It allows me to bear up under the dealing with my own mortality in the future.
And it is this truth of the resurrection that allows all God's people to look beyond their own mortality to understand that there's life after life.
There's eternal life that is far, far improved than what the life is that we have here.
So this is what profits us in the resurrection.
We have these truths to be sure and certain.
And so we have the doctrine of the resurrection.
And it profits us by giving us confidence of God's good pleasure with us because Christ has paid for our sin and we are adorned with his righteousness.
The doctrine of the resurrection profits us by the power it has given us to walk in newness of life that is not characterized by the corruption and death that we see in those who hate Christ all around us.
And the doctrine of the resurrection profits us by the certainty and so the courage it gives us to face our own mortality and to realize that there's even better life beyond this good life.
And so we see this, we see it of cash value.
We see the profit of the doctrine of the resurrection and how it stabilizes and sustains the Christian.
And out of all this grows a joy that comes with the resurrection.
We can find joy in the midst of our hardships, in the midst of our disappointments, in the midst of our trials.
He who is resurrected is at the right hand of the Father, and he's praying for us.
And he who is resurrected has promised that he would never leave us nor forsake us.
And so we have a reason to be joyful no matter what the situation or circumstance.
Ladies and gentlemen, if I know that I'm going to have two hours and two hours only, they're going to be slammed dunks on this program.
I know it's going to be the third hour, the last hour before Easter and Christmas, respectively.
And that is thanks to one man and one man only, Pastor Brett McAtee.
Thank you, Pastor Brett, for being a good man, a good friend, a man of God.
Tomorrow is Resurrection Sunday.
It is not Transgender Day or whatever the occupier of the White House says it is.
It is Resurrection Sunday for everyone who has appeared on TPC during this, our march around the world.
I'm James Edwards for Pastor Brett McAtee.
We'll see you next week as we kick off the surgeon.