Sudden Improvement

Before turning to the Gospel of Luke, would you turn to the book of Philippians, chapter 3. The book of Philippians, chapter 3. Philippians chapter 3, reading the last two verses of the chapter, verses 20 and 21.

For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.

Now you turn to Luke chapter 24 please. Chapter 24. We want to begin reading at verse 33.

Luke 24 verse 33, “So they rose up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem. And they found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, ‘The Lord is risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon.’ And they told about the things that had happened on the road and how He was known to them in the breaking of bread. Now as they said these things, Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them and said to them, ‘Peace to you.’ But they were terrified and frightened and supposed they had seen a spirit.

And He said to them, ‘Why are you troubled? Why do doubts arise in your hearts? Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.’ When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet. But while they still did not believe for joy and marveled, He said to them, ‘Have you any food here?’ So they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish and some honeycomb. And He took it and ate in their presence.”

Ben and Jack Goldman used to talk with their daughter Carol every Sunday at a home for the mentally ill. These conversations, however, ended abruptly in 1976 when Carol suffered a seizure, hit her head, and stopped talking. Before her seizure Carol had learned to walk and to talk. She was able to dress herself and to make her bed. But she had never learned to read above a fourth-grade level.

At the time that the seizure occurred she was in a home for the mentally ill in Albany, New York. After three months in a coma she was transferred to Western Maryland Center, which is a state-run hospital for the chronically ill. I believe that this center is located in Hagerstown, Maryland, which is a town I have visited on many, many occasions.

After she was transferred to the center she began to improve. She was able to shake her head yes or no. She was able to point to words on the communication board. Her father, Mr. Goldman, said, “We knew she had memory because we would ask her questions about the family.” But she wouldn’t speak.

That is why Ben and Jack Goldman one day early in 1994 rushed to Carol’s room. Because a therapist had told them that Carol had spoken. Excitedly Mrs. Goldman held up one finger and she said, “What is this?” And Carol said, “One.” And Mrs. Goldman said, “Who am I?” And Carol said, “Mom.” With the blood almost rushing from her head she pointed at her husband and Carol said, “Dad.”

Later Mrs. Goldman said, “We went bananas.” Dr. Carl Fisher, the director of the Western Maryland Center, said although it is very rare there were some previous cases of sudden improvement that had occurred. Even though it was unusual, doctors were at a loss to exactly explain what had happened. Although they were guessing that it might have had something to do with changes in Carol’s medication.

But one thing was perfectly obvious. Carol Goldman had experienced sudden improvement. The article in the Dallas Morning News that reported this story had as its headline “Returned Woman’s Silence Ends” and as its subheadline “Parents Joyful as Daughter Speaks Again After 18 Years.”

And I think you will agree with me that not only is that a very touching story but it is also an effective reminder that we take the physical bodies and the talents of our physical bodies for granted. Isn’t it wonderful to be able to walk and talk, to taste, to eat, to smell, to hear? And even those of us who are advancing in the years and our bodies don’t quite function as well as they used to function, even we realize that the physical body is a marvelous creation of God.

But did you know, did you know that every Christian, and by that I mean if you have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ who died for your sins, if you have believed in Him for the free gift of everlasting life and you know that you are going to heaven, that every born-again Christian is a candidate for sudden improvement? You are a candidate for sudden improvement in your physical body.

And because we don’t talk very much about the physical bodies that we will have in the future and because it is important for us to know what the Bible says and teaches about these bodies, I would like to talk to you for a few minutes this morning on the following topic. The topic is sudden improvement. And of course that topic also constitutes the title of my message to you today. My title is Sudden Improvement.

You know I will never forget when I was a high school student that my toughest course in high school was a course in mechanical drawing. I did pretty well in my other courses. But in mechanical drawing I was a dunce. And I was getting grades that were low enough to keep me off the honor roll for a free great report card.

Now the teacher that we had in mechanical drawing was a very, very elderly man by the name of Mr. Milnes. And looking at him from the standpoint of a high school student I was pretty convinced that he had an unhappy night. Because his mood in the classroom ranged somewhere usually between bad and awful.

But one day I stirred up what little courage I had and I went up to Mr. Milnes after the class. I was scared to death. And I said to Mr. Milnes, “How can I bring up my grade?” And I will never forget the answer that Mr. Milnes gave to me. It was short, sweet, and to the point and consisted of three words. You know what he said? He said, “Improve your work. Improve your work.”

Well I want you to know I didn’t have the slightest idea how to improve my work in mechanical drawing. And I continued to stumble my way through the course drawing low grades. And I didn’t get out from under it until I graduated from mechanical drawing.

But you know, isn’t that sort of the way it is with our physical bodies? Beyond certain limits we cannot improve the way they were. Even if I am a well-trained Olympic athlete and even if I have toned my body to maximum performance, there are still limits beyond which I cannot carry that body. And the only person who is able to give us a marvelous and wonderful improvement in our physical bodies is the person who created them. And that is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

And did you know that God uses the model of our Lord’s own resurrection body as the model and example and pattern by which He will improve the physical body of every single Christian? That is why the apostle Paul said in the passage we read just a few minutes ago, “Our citizenship is in heaven from which we are eagerly waiting for a Savior who will transform our lowly body so that it may be conformed to His own glorious body.”

The physical body at the resurrection is the model on which God will improve your body. And that is why it is very, very important that we should pay very close attention to the passage of Scripture that we read a few moments ago from the Gospel of Luke. You see in this passage of Scripture we get a snapshot. We get a brief portrait of the resurrection body of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

You see the disciples were gathered in a certain place in the city of Jerusalem. And the two travelers who had traveled all the way from Jerusalem to Emmaus and back again suddenly burst in on the disciples. But before they could get a word out the disciples, excited, announced to them, “The Lord is risen indeed and He has appeared to Simon. He has appeared to Peter.”

And then these two travelers poured out the story that they had experienced as they walked from Jerusalem to Emmaus in the company of Jesus Christ. Not knowing who He was but thrilled as He explained the Old Testament Scriptures and how those Scriptures predicted His death and resurrection. And they explained to the disciples that they had not recognized Jesus until they sat down at the table with Him, until they began to break bread with Him. And then suddenly He had vanished out of their sight.

And while that assembled group was talking and excitedly going over the events that occurred and while they were rejoicing that Jesus was risen, something suddenly happened. Suddenly, not without walking through a door, without knocking, Jesus entered the room and appeared among them. And He said, “Peace to you. Peace to you.”

Now peace was the very thing that those disciples didn’t have at that particular moment. In fact the Bible tells us that they were frightened and terrified. And they thought that they were seeing a spirit. Either perhaps the spirit of Jesus Himself or a spirit that resembled Jesus. And apparently in that moment they began to doubt the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Apparently they began to wonder if what Peter had seen and the travelers had seen was simply a spirit.

And it was then that Jesus said to them, “Why are you troubled and why do doubts arise in your heart? Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.”

My friends, right at the very beginning, right at the top of this passage, we can learn a very important fact. You see if our bodies are to be modeled after the body of Jesus Christ, and that means that when we are alive in the kingdom of God we will not be spirits. We will not be what many people think we will be. We will not be angels. You know what we will be? We will be human beings. And we will have bodies that are solid and which are made of flesh and bone.

A spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have. But wait a minute. That physical body, that body of flesh and bone, will be marvelously and wonderfully improved. Have you noticed already that Jesus was able in a physical body of flesh and bone to disappear from the vision of the two travelers to Emmaus? And He was able to reappear in a crowded room of disciples. He appeared and disappeared apparently at will.

May I suggest our bodies will be like that. As everybody in this audience knows, when I was a little boy I was a comic book hound. And I not only read Superman and Batman. I also read about the Flash who was built in those days as the fastest man alive. He wore a little helmet on his head, a tight red shirt and tight blue trousers. And he could run from one place to another faster than anything could move. And you know what else he could do? He could vibrate his body so that when he was in a room he was invisible.

Now behind that comic book stuff, folks, is some scientific information. Do you realize that our bodies as well as all physical objects are made of molecules or atoms, as they used to be called? And our molecules are moving at a certain rate of speed. And therefore we look solid to each other. And the things that we feel and touch are solid to each other because the molecules are moving so fast.

But as you may know, if the molecule of one physical object moves faster than the molecules of another we can get a situation where a straw is plunged without breaking into the side of a tree. Not very long ago I was watching television footage about a storm that occurred somewhere. And they were pointing out that a tree limb had been plunged into the side of a building. And they showed it on television. And there was the tree limb unbroken stuck into the building. Or at least a little while. The molecules of the tree limb moved faster than the molecules of the building. And it went partially through the building.

And I want to suggest to you that in the light of our current scientific knowledge, in the light of the information that we have here from the Scriptures, we can probably expect that in our physical bodies at the resurrection we will be able to control the speed of our molecules. You can’t do that now, can you? Neither can I.

You know I would very much like to be able to step out of my apartment in Mesquite and arrive here at Victor Street in about two seconds flat. And instead of going through one of these doors just walk right through the wall. I can’t do it, folks. I can’t move that fast. If I try to walk through the wall I will be flattened in the parking lot outside.

But hey, when we get our resurrection bodies, judging from what Jesus was able to do, we will be able to do the same as well. Now I do not think for a minute that God will give us this ability just simply so we can pull tricks that we have never pulled before. I am sure that the capacities of our new physical bodies will be designed in some way to allow us to serve God and glorify God in ways that we have never been able to do before.

So if you say to me then what use would it be to control the molecules of our body, my answer is this. I don’t know. But I can hardly wait to find out.

Now somebody may be saying just at this point, well, saying if our resurrection bodies are going to be like that they must be altogether brand new and different bodies than we have right now. If any of you are thinking that it is not surprising. But I say to you, hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it. There is not only no reason to believe that. There is reason to believe the contrary.

To be convinced of the contrary, did you notice the words of Jesus? He says, “Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself.” And then He showed them His hands and His feet. Now please understand that many of these men had spent three to three and a half years traveling around with Jesus. There were few parts of His body more familiar to them than His hands. They had seen Him break bread with those hands. They had seen Him lay those hands on the sick. They had seen those hands pick things up and put them down, put on a garment and all sorts of things.

And those feet, remember they wore sandals in those days. Those feet were familiar to them too. Those feet they had seen walking along the dirty, dusty highways of Palestine. They had seen Him sit down in a group and cross His legs. And they saw His feet. They had seen Him lying asleep and they had seen His feet. His hands and His feet were familiar to them.

But there was more than that. According to the Gospel of John there were scars in those hands when He was resurrected. And no doubt in His feet the scars left by the wounds of the nails with which He was crucified. Don’t you see what Jesus is saying here? He is saying, “Look, look at Me. I am the same person that I was before. This is the same body. These are the same hands. These are the same feet. This is the same body.” Yes, but it was a body that was wonderfully improved.

Don’t you find that comforting? You know one of the most frequent questions that I have been asked over the years as a minister of the gospel is this: Will we recognize our loved ones in heaven? It would be better to say will we recognize our loved ones in the kingdom of God? And the answer to that is of course we will. Of course we will. Oh yes, our bodies will be improved. But our bodies will be the same bodies in which we have lived down here.

Guess what? When you see Johnny Martinez in the kingdom of God you will see the Johnny Martinez you have always known. When you see Carlos in the kingdom of God you will see the Carlos you have already known. When you see Lucinda in the kingdom of God you will see the same Lucinda that you have always known. When you see Francis Dean you will see the same Francis Dean that you already know. When you see Zane you will see the same Zane you have always, always known.

But listen. When you see Johnny or Carlos or Lucinda or Francis or me you will see the very best edition of us that any of you have ever seen. It will be the same person. It will be the same body. But oh how much better those bodies will be.

Now I have got more good news for you. More good news. Did you notice that after Jesus offered them a chance to examine His hands and His feet and they turned over to Him a piece of broiled fish and a honeycomb? And guess what? He ate the fish and the honeycomb. Did He need to eat to stay alive? No, of course not. Did He need to eat to stay healthy? Of course not. Why did He eat? Well, right here in part to show them that He had a real physical body.

But why would the resurrection body be able to eat? Here is an answer that may surprise you. Undoubtedly we will eat for the pleasure of eating. Do you remember the sixteenth Psalm? One of the great psalms of the Old Testament about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The closing verses of that psalm can be taken as the words of Jesus Christ as He looks forward to His resurrection by God. And Jesus says in that psalm, “You will show Me the path of life. In Your presence there is fullness of joy. At Your right hand there are pleasures, pleasures forevermore.”

You know what is one of the worst lies the devil tells us about God? He tells us that God doesn’t want us to have any pleasure. And if we have any pleasure at all we ought to feel guilty about it. Nonsense. When God created man and woman He put them in a garden that was filled with trees that were pleasant to the eyes and good for food. As they concentrated on all those trees and that is the one tree they were not supposed to eat of, alone they would still be having the pleasure of God’s fruit today.

And I want you to know that one of the wonderful things about the future bodies that you and I will have is that whatever physical pleasures are available to us in the kingdom of God these bodies will be prepared to experience them to the full. To the full. That is my friend. It will be the same physical body. It will be an improved physical body. And it will be a body prepared for the fullness of joy that will be ours in the kingdom of God.

In 1799 when the armies of Napoleon Bonaparte were sweeping across the continent of Europe, his general Massena conducted an army that spread out along the hills that just overlooked a city called Feldkirch. It was Easter Sunday morning. And the sunlight just gleamed off of the weapons that the French army possessed. Down in the city of Feldkirch they were alarmed. And the city council was called together to figure out what they should do. There was no question that they couldn’t defend the city. So they wondered what their reaction or response should be.

And while they were deliberating this one of the leading clergymen in the city got up and he said, “My brothers, it is Easter Sunday morning.” And he said, “We have been trying to measure our own strength and it fails. We need to turn it over to God.” He said, “Let us ring the bells of the churches as we usually do. Let us hold our services as we usually do. And let us leave the matter in the hands of God.”

They all agreed that that is what they should do. And so in a few minutes all of the church bells of the village of Feldkirch were ringing. And the streets were filled with people who were going to their various churches to worship. The French army heard the bell ringing with surprise and alarm. They concluded that the Austrian army must have arrived to relieve the city. So General Massena broke camp. He gave orders to his troops to march. And before the bells had stopped ringing there was not a French soldier in sight.

Now folks, as Christians we face our share of enemies: sin, Satan, and death. And we are waiting for a sound which will banish those enemies. But it is not the sound of bells. It is the sound of a trumpet. The Bible says, “The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.”

“Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep but we shall be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump. For the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised and we shall be changed.”

My friends, the improvement of our physical body awaits the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And because that coming could be today or tomorrow or next week or next month, then the improvement that we are waiting for could easily turn out to be sudden improvement.

Shall we pray? Father, we pray that every Christian person in this audience who knows that they are saved and on their way into Your presence live expectantly for the Savior’s return and for the transformation of our lowly bodies that they may be conformed to His glorious body. For any unsaved person here who is not sure that they will be with You when Your Son returns, we pray that they may today believe in the Lord Jesus Christ for the free gift of everlasting life. We ask these things in Christ’s name. Amen.