that you cannot refuse. I don't know how many of you do much shopping in Easter season, but we do shopping all the time. We don't buy a lot, we do a lot of shopping, you know, it doesn't cost anything to look. But we were out yesterday at Memorial City, and there was a lot of people out there, and as we were walking down the mall, there were two things that caught my eye, and they were both similar. That is, right out in the middle of the mall, They had this gigantic Easter bunny stuffed, not a real one, but a gigantic stuffed Easter bunny, and they had this lady there taking pictures, and it said, take your child's picture with the Easter bunny. Of course, the first thing that came to my mind was take your child's picture with Santa, you know. It seemed like the same, it was about an eight foot tall bunny, and you'd set the child in the bunny's lap. And then, of course, they would take the child's picture. And if you didn't like the bunny, they had an egg that was cracked, gigantic, and the child sitting beside the egg with his head sticking out. Well, I went on down the mall a little bit further and there was another picture taking place. And they had a little boy, he was a real cute little boy, I guess he was about one year old or one and a half years old. And they had him sitting up there in the little red wagon and took pictures in the little red wagon. And then they had him doing various other things, standing by a rocking chair. And then she gave him an Easter bunny with colored plastic eggs in it, which he immediately tried to eat, you know. And I went on down a little bit further and I saw the mad rush for the different types of new styles in clothing. And again, it just reminded me of Christmas so much. I never thought before the parallels between Christmas and between Easter. Another story, we saw the people at the last minute trying to buy the specials on the Easter baskets and the Easter egg candy and so forth. And it just reminded me so much. of Christmas time. I saw a few people buying Christmas cards, Easter cards, you know, and I even got one. That's unusual. I don't know where you got an Easter card and I have a chance to tell you didn't. But not as many people get gifts during Easter as they do Christmas and not as many people get cards. But you and I managed to live through that. We can get along all right if we don't get any special gifts and we don't get any cards. We can take this in our stride. And I never hear anybody saying, Merry Easter and Happy Pentecost. Well, you know, New Year's follows Christmas Day a few days. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. And Pentecost follows Easter just a few more days. But I never hear anybody give that greeting, although maybe I could start that one going, see if we can do anything with it. But anyway, it seems that there are a number of parallels. And yet I find the majority of people get more excited about Easter in the religious realm, in the church world, they get more excited about Easter than they do about Christmas. And as I sat down and writing this sermon and began to think about it, that makes good sense. I understand why they do that. Why? Christmas announces that salvation from sin is available. Easter announces that salvation from death is available, and there are a lot more people today interested in getting delivered from death than there are in getting delivered from sin. So therefore, Easter becomes the more popular of the two. Christmas bothers a fellow's conscience, because Christmas implies that God had to send a Savior to save people who needed saving. Easter just implies that a guy's going to die, and when he's dead, he's going to live again. Man, everybody buy that. That sounds great. Now, they don't like Christmas. It's got a change of oomph to it. I don't like the guy telling me, you know, I need to be saved. But now, I don't mind God telling me that I'm going to live again if I die. I like that pretty good. So therefore, Easter becomes the popular of the two. You know, the Bible, though, calls salvation the good news of the gospel. I think man, though, exchanges and says that the resurrection is the best news of the gospel. I find most people don't see any connection between Christmas and Easter, and they're right. Really, in a sense, they're right, 100%. In one sense, both of these were made available by Christ. But regarding Christmas and salvation, you can have salvation from sin if you want it, and if you ask for it. But when it comes from salvation from death, you get it whether you ask for it or not. You get it whether you want it or not. Now, at Christmas, you get saved whether you want to or whether you don't want to. You can reject it. Not at Easter. The one gift that everybody gets as a result of the resurrection of Christ is resurrection. We shall all live again. whether we want to or whether we don't want to. The resurrection of the body is a gift you and I now have and we can't get rid of. No way. Easter says simply this, there is life beyond the grave and you're not going to miss it. But that's all it says. That's all it says. And I think that's what most people want you to say, and let it go at that. Don't start preaching. Just keep it right there now. Just say, we're going to live and we die, and don't go any further. Well, I'm going to go further. I'm preaching. I'm going to go further. And what I want to say this morning may come as news to you. It may come as a shock. But to some people, the thought that you're going to live, brethren, forever and ever is bad news. It's sad news. It's not good news. It's bad news. I don't know how many of you read the paper last week, The Chronicle. I read this headline Thursday. Teenager hangs himself. He added up life, got zero. The boy was in, I guess this is right, Bella Chasey, Louisiana. That's probably wrong. But anyway, it's in Louisiana. I got that part right. He only gave himself, and they didn't know how old the boy was, they just guessed at his age, still hadn't found his parents, didn't know anything about him. The boy was intelligent, manly, but unwise in every other way. He only gave himself 16 or 17 years to develop into a real person. Then he bade his parents farewell in a note laced with philosophy and hanged himself from a persimmon tree. I was born with a definite pervasive melancholy. What frustrated me most in the last year was that I had built no ties to family or friends. There was nothing of lasting worth and value. I had a detached existence, and I was a parody of a person. And so, as far as that boy is concerned, he had no reason to live, and so he died. And here comes Easter, just a few days later, and announces, young man, you're not going to die. Sorry about that. Now, that really would upset that boy. It has upset that boy. He's not going to die. Oh, you say, that's right. But Easter says there's a resurrection. That poor boy has got to come back, whether he want and he doesn't want to. He's already signed off and said, I have had enough of the world and enough of people, I'm through. I don't want to have any more of this stuff. I'm washed up. No, he's not. Sorry about that. He's going to have to come back all over again. And this time he's not going to be able to go out. Look at John 11 if you have a Bible. And we'll begin reading with the 25th verse. Jesus said unto the lady, her name was Mary. I am the resurrection and the life, and he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet should he live." Now, that young man would probably say, well, that doesn't bother me, Preacher, because I didn't believe in your Jesus. It says here, if I believe in him, well, then I'll have resurrection. I didn't believe in him, so that calls me out. Oh, no. No, no, no. We'll see you're wrong there. That's what a lot of people think. He says, I am the resurrection and the life. All right. A lot of people don't take the words of Jesus too serious. But you know, he is a life insurance policy for all of us that you and I are going to all get benefits from one way or the other. The benefits being life beyond this life we now have life beyond the grave. Now, the boy who took his life, he wouldn't want that insurance policy. And as I understand today, one of the great problems is that teenagers are committing suicide more than any other age group in society. They think that's the end of it, but that's not the end of it. To a lot of people, they are finding, and I think our world is getting under some pressure, and a lot of people feel the only way out is just to take their life, but they don't realize you can't do that. Not for good. Or you can take it temporarily, but you can't take it for good. But to a lot of people, life is just a flat tire. It's just daily humdrum. Or it's a madhouse, somehow yours is. Or it's a dead-end street, there's no place to go. It's the same thing over and over and over. Or life is just a stick in the mud, or it's a jigsaw puzzle that you can't ever figure out. And so people get depressed and they just say, well, I'm through with it. I've had it. And you come along and tell these people they're going to have a rerun, they have a fit. You mean I have to come back and live all over again? I don't want to have anything to do with it. And so they don't look upon Easter at all with any joy. There are some that don't want to live after they die. Then I think there's another group of people, and I want to talk mainly about these this morning, that to them they want to live after they die, but please, for goodness sakes, do you have to live with Jesus? And do you have to live in heaven? Can't there be another alternative? In other words, they say, Heaven is for the overly religious. Preachers and all those sort of folks. That's for the overly religious. And hell is for the overly wicked. But now most of us folks are in the middle. We're neither overly religious nor overly wicked. We're just overly nothings, you know. And isn't there some place for us to go? Well, where would you like to go? What would you like to do?" And they say, well, now you're talking our language. And I'm going to give you a few illustrations of what I think some would say if the Lord hadn't laid down the rules of the game already. He says, you're going to live resurrected. You're going to live. I think a lot of people, though, say now that the idea of the Indian head or the happy hunting ground sounds a lot more appealing than heaven's happy holy ground. I'd rather go to the happy hunting ground, especially if I had a 30-30 and a lot of deer, and I could just spend eternity as a great white hunter. Now, that's some people's idea of heaven, brother. Not God's heaven, but their heaven. I think most of us make our own little heaven. And we hope and pray that somehow when we get resurrected, the Lord will say, well, now let's go to that little heaven you want to go to. What kind of heaven would you go to? Well, let me give you an idea. Some people, to them, now I'm not saying this is y'all, but I say to some people, heaven to them, would be a little six foot or five foot stew in front of a beer table. And there they'd like to sit, sipping their soda, whatever they want to sip there, not soda I guess, but sipping their suds for the rest of eternity. Because all during the month, and all during the week, as soon as they get off work, they make a beeline to the first stew they can find, and there they sit, until the place closes up. And if they had their choice of living after death, they couldn't dream of living without that part in their life. That is their life. That's all they live for. Now, I know it's sort of rude to say that, but I think, brethren, that fits some people. That fits some people. And to them, they wouldn't want any other kind of heaven. I think some people would get all of their thrill in life, especially young people, if the Lord had some planet where there was a rock concert and that's all they had forever. Just sit there and listen to it because mainly in their life they have a radio in this hand of the ear or the car dials turned on and they probably spend 45% of their day just listening to music. And they could never be happy unless this is what they had. This is their joy in this life. And what you lack in this life is probably what you think you ought to have in the next life. And what you think you couldn't live without in this life is probably what you think you've got to have in the next life. To some people, that might be nothing more than just walking their dog around the park. They'll spend eternity. That's fine with them. They'd rather do that than walk with Christ. While we were at the mall yesterday, I better not use this word, I guess, but two little bitty dogs. Two little old bitty, I mean they were little bitty dogs. And I wonder who was, they were taking pictures. And the girl went over there and she said, you know daddy, they're taking pictures of those dogs. I guess they put them on the table like a kid and they're taking pictures of their dogs. Well, I guess that's all right. But they must really love their dogs. And probably they can't think of life beyond the grave without such as this. But that's about as deep as our thinking goes of life beyond the grave. Really, that's about as deep as it goes. For some, you just give me a trail in the back of a car and I'll trip around the universe. And that's all they want. That's to satisfy them, in fact. Or some will go on eternal shopping spree. What I'm saying to people is this, that most people, in their thinking about life beyond the grave, is in no way connected to Jesus Christ. Now, when you think of life beyond the grave, how often do you think of Christ? You don't really. You see, we want to live. But we don't want to live with him, and we don't want to live with his lifestyle, and we don't want to live under his living conditions. We hope and pray there is a third alternative. And I believe a lot of people go around to other religions saying, maybe you have a third offer. Christianity offers us heaven and hell. What do you have to offer? And of course, they have a third alternative, and a fourth, and a fifth, and a sixth. Every religion's got a new alternative. Man doesn't want heaven, and he sure doesn't want hell. So what's left? He's got to live. Jesus said, I'm the resurrection, and man shall live. Whether he likes it or not, where am I going to live? And what am I going to do? Now you and I probably won't live to be 100 years old, and that's a lot of living to us. That's a long time. And I don't know what you're going to do in your 100 years, but there's going to be some things you're going to single out as major time consumers in your life. There'll be some things. This is a busy mall here. You know the Lord gives you messages in everything you see, everything you do, if you look for them. And while my wife and girls were out looking for a pair of shoes, I got tired of walking and I just stopped in front of the television set and they had a basketball game on. I think Kentucky was playing somebody. And I'd rather do that than walk. So my idea of heaven is not walking, I'll tell you that. Anyway, I was standing there watching television set, and they had a whole bunch of them, and they were trying to sell TV. I didn't want to buy TV either. But anyway, they had a line of TVs, and I'd just watch one after the other and see what was going on, you know. And a man came up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder, and he said, man, that makes me mad. I turned around and said, what's going on here? I said, what makes you mad? He said, look at that television. And I looked at it, and the thing had turned itself to channel 8, which was the color bands. The basketball show had gone off, now it's color bands. And my boy, how did that happen, Eddie? I said, man, I don't know. And he said, that man over there, see him? And it was one of these places where they had a set where you could push a button by remote control, and it would turn channels. What he had done, he didn't want us watching that television in the free garage, so he switched it to that color band. And that's when the guy said, you know, he does it every time. Which means that guy had been standing there, I don't know for how long, you know. And I said, well, why don't you just wait him out? Just stand here and wait, you know, and he'll change it back. Well, I went on, I didn't want to watch the color base, so I went on and found my wife and came back about 15 minutes later, and there he stood. Still watching that basketball game, and he kept looking at that man, you know, watching the game, watching that man. But I guess that guy, heaven, couldn't be heaven, and life beyond the grade just couldn't be life beyond the grade if you didn't have some kind of sports thing going on. And I know there are a lot of people, boy, if there wasn't sports, they'd fold up. Their life is Saturday sports evening. And if it wasn't on, they just don't know what they'd do with themselves. Well, what are you going to do? Eternity? You couldn't add up on an ad machine, brethren, with a million rolls of tape and putting down zeros, as many as you could on that piece of tape, on the front and the back. You couldn't even begin to number how many years you're going to spend in eternity. Just no way. You could wrap this earth in all the ad machine tape that's ever been made, printed front and back, and you still haven't even started. Now, what are you going to do forever? People say, oh, I want to live beyond the grave. Do you? Do you really want to live? Not just another couple of years. Forever? Well, now, you're going to live. That's what Easter says. You're going to live. It doesn't say a thing about where you're going to live. It just says you're going to live. And a lot of people, I'm afraid, when they stop and think about it, would rather be phased out than raised up. They really would. And they can't get excited about the idea of spending forever, and again I'll say, with Christ. Just can't feature this. They haven't spent the last 30 or 40 years with Christ. Watching most people, he's a stranger. And you don't get real eager to go visit a stranger, especially when you know what that stranger is going to want and expect you to do. And so a lot of people are going to be made very uncomfortable by the idea that they're going to live. But they say there's got to be a third alternative. There's just got to be a third alternative. Well, brethren, if there is, it's not in the Bible. Maybe you think there is one. I don't believe you'll ever find the Bible, you have another choice. A lot of people have the hope that they're going to live again. But most of them are saying, I sure hope it's better than the first go-round. I hope I have a better house, and I'm sure not going to live next door to the neighbors I live next to now when I come back that next time. And I hope that the food I eat is better, I hope I don't get sick anymore. Brother, in the next go-round, there's going to be a lot of change. Well, that's true. There's going to be a lot of changes, but I'm afraid you're not going to have any control over any of them. Christ lives. That's great. You're going to live. Is that great? Well, whether it is or whether it isn't, there it is. Christ. And you together forever. How's that sound to you? How does that sit with? to a lot of people that cringe. Oh, you mean that's it? No. You've got one alternative. Now, if you want something better, brethren, you only have one alternative. If you want something worse, well, just do nothing and you've got it. Just do nothing and you've got it. To me, Christmas is the great time of the year. Really now. Christmas is good news. Christmas comes and says, God loves men. God has sent his son to save men. Won't you be saved? All the hope in the world comes to you at Christmas. That's a great time. Easter comes and says, man, when you die, that's it. You're going to live, but that's it. There's no hope beyond Easter. Easter, the only hope of Easter is you're going to live. The hope of Christmas is that you can live with Christ. I'd much rather dwell on Christmas. I think the people get misconceived about this. They'll all come to church on Easter primarily, which is great. But the good time of hope is Christmas. Because at the time of Christmas, Christ holds his hand out and says, come on, save me. At Easter, you're just, well, you're going to get what you ask for. That's about all Easter is. But you're going to live. If that's what you want to do is live, you've got it, man. I'll guarantee you this morning, you'll live. Christmas guarantees where you'll live. You should just make sure you get there. That's all it does. And so to me, Christ is the one. There's going to come a time on this earth. I don't know when it'll be. Some people say the Lord's return is drawing nigh. I don't know. He'll come back one of these days, and I can't hurry him up, and I can't ignore it. It'll come when the Lord decides for it to come. Well, there's going to come a day upon this earth When Jesus comes back, this may sound like some kind of fantastic dream, but there it is, there it is. He's going to come back to this earth and he's going to set up his rule for a thousand years. He hasn't been allowed to rule this old earth for about 6,000 years. He's going to finally give him a chance at it. It's his, he made it, so why shouldn't he have a right to do something with it? So he's going to rule it for a thousand years. During that thousand years, people are going to do what he says. It's going to be the nearest thing to heaven on earth man has ever known. God will shut down everything he doesn't like. And he'll not be opened up, and man's not going to be allowed to disobey God's laws. If he does, he's dead. It's that simple. He shall rule with an ironclad hand, but everybody's going to do what he wants. Now, a lot of people say, well, boy, that's going to be a sorry time. A lot of people living during that thousand years are going to think the same thing. And I'm tired of this stuff. People don't want to live under heavenly conditions. They don't. Just look around you. Read your newspapers. People don't want to live with Jesus' thumb on their line. Okay. During a thousand years, they're going to live with his thumb on their line. Do it! God's way or God. Well, at the end of a thousand years, God's going to give everybody a chance to rebel. All right, just do what you want to boys. Have your own way. Well, they're going to take you up on it. Let's turn to Revelation 20. You have a Bible now. Let's just see what happens when he turns them loose, turns them loose. Let's go back to verse 4. Let's go back to verse 4, chapter 20. And I saw thrones, and they that sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them, and I saw the souls." Now, I want you to notice something real carefully here. I want you to notice the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, in which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. All right? Now, a thousand years is gone. It's past the end. And notice something new. Those who get to live within the thousand years, besides the people still on the earth when Christ comes, will be all the redeemed Christian people. It says here, but the rest of the dead live not again until the thousand years were finished. All the dead people who have died in the past, who have never given their life to Christ, they become a Christian, they just stay dead. Jesus comes, the Christians are resurrected, but the unsaved stay dead during a thousand years. Now notice what it says here, though. But the rest of the dead live not again till a thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. The Bible talks about two basic separated by a time sequence of 1,000 years. All right? Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection. Blessed means happy. Happy is the fellow that's going to get involved and participate in the first resurrection. On such, the second death hath no power. Now, let's go on down to verse 7. Now, when the 1,000 years are lit or expired, they end. The Bible says that Satan gets his chance again. He's been tied up for a thousand years, couldn't do anything to people. And he's going to go out and deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth. Why? Because they want to be deceived. They're fed up with Christ's thumb upon their lines. And he gathers them together to overthrow Christ. Put him down. And they went up on the breadth of the earth and come past the camp of the saints of out in the beloved city and fire came down from God of heaven and devoured them. And then it says in the devil that the seed of the people was cast in the lake of fire. Now let's get around to the second resurrection. Now I said, blessed is the man that has part in the first resurrection. Now we go on to the second. And I saw a great white throne, and he and his son on it, from whom the face of the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for man. Now notice the second resurrection. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God. And the books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life. The book of life contains the names of those who have given their life to Christ to live and love him. And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works. Everything you've done is recorded. And the seed gave up the dead which were in it, and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them, and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast in the lake of fire, and this is the second death. Whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast in the lake of fire. Two resurrections, brethren. That's why I say Easter is a sad message, or it's a glad message, depending on which category you fall into. Christ lives, and there are two alternatives. You shall live, there is no doubt about this. You shall live. Christ says now to man, heaven is the place that I live in. If you would like to begin practicing the lifestyle of heaven now, if you would begin to walk with me now, and to make me the center of your being and the center of your attention now, if you'd begin to try to love me now, And pick up my ways now. When you die and are resurrected, you can come and live with me. Now, I find the majority of people don't think that's a very good privilege. That's why at Christmas time we keep Jesus in the crib. We keep him a baby. But he didn't stay a baby. He grew up. He said he was God, and he is. He died and he arose from the dead. He comes back and he says, now listen, I can keep you from perishing. I can keep you from experiencing the second death, which I just read to you. I can keep you from experiencing torment and the lack of fire. I'd like to do that. That's what I came to earth for in the first place. That's what I was born for in the first place. I would like to save every man, woman, boy and girl on the face of this earth. I'd like to do that. I love them. I want them also. And because I live now, every one of them is going to live. But they're not all going to live with me unless they want to. You'll find the day that Christ doesn't make you do anything. He doesn't make you go to church. He doesn't make you pray. He doesn't make you live holy. He doesn't make you stop sinning. He doesn't make you do anything. It's up to you. You're going to live. And you must choose the life you want. It's up to you. He says, I would preferably like to have you live with me. God says, I'd like to have you as my child. That's up to you. And you're going to live. And so to me, Easter is a message of hope, but to one group of people. And the hope is not that you're going to live, brother. But the hope of the Christian is he's going to get to live with Christ. Again, let me say this, a good test, would you like to live with him right now? If you don't want to live with him right now, chances are you wouldn't want to live with him ever. I believe we ought to start getting a trial run practice to show our sincerity. Now maybe there is another alternative, but I have no grounds as a minister to offer it to you. If you would like to take a chance and risk it, that's your business, it's not mine. I don't care the chances. On Easter, I recommend just friend to friend. Brethren, you're going to live. And it seems you're going to only have two choices. You're going to have to give up a little bit now, and have Christ as your Savior, and go to heaven forever, or get what you want now, and spend eternity in misery. You're going to lose them when you go. No matter how you go, you're going to lose. You're going to lose some freedom now, Are you going to lose forever some joy? You can take your choice. And I think on Easter morning, the Bible just says, brethren, you'll get what you choose. But you're going to live. You'll either live with me or you'll live away from me. That's what Easter says. Father, we give thee thanks this morning that Christ did come. And we give thee thanks this morning that Christ still stands anxiously with his arms outstretched, saying to all mankind, won't you be saved? Won't you flee for what's ahead? As John the Baptist said, flee from the wrath to come. God, we know that you desire that no man anywhere after his resurrection spend eternity anywhere but in your presence. God open our eyes this morning to realize that we're going to make our choice in this life right now. One way or the other, we're going to choose whether we're going to live with him or live away from him. And there doesn't seem to be a third alternative. And if there is someone, Father, in this house this morning that has never truly, honestly, sincerely said, yes, Jesus Christ, I'll side with you, And I'll let your lifestyle become my lifestyle, and I'll let you become my Lord and my Savior. Father, we ask this morning that they might have great sense and reason, and this will be the decision that they make. For the decision they make in this life is a decision they must live with forever. We pray these things in Jesus' name, for His sake. Amen.