Matt Hagee - Dead Men Walking
This morning, as we discuss "Dead Men Walking," I want to give you a picture of how my life started and the hope that it'll help you understand the resurrection power of Christ that lives in those who are redeemed. It was a Saturday morning at 8:02 a.M. In the Santa rosa hospital downtown San Antonio, july the 22nd, 1978 that I took my very first breath. I had heard that Barbacoa was served on Saturdays. So I wanted to get here before breakfast. Early that morning my parents were having a very heated and intense discussion. They didn't ever argue. But that discussion was whether or not mom was in labor. Dad said she was. She said she wasn't. Dad said, "We're going to the hospital". She said, "We're not".
Dad picked her up, put her in the car, and started driving. Dad won. Just a few moments later, about 7:15 when they rolled into the parking lot at Santa Rosa, mom suddenly came into agreement with dad that she was indeed in labor. Before they could get the doctor into the delivery room, it was dad and the nurse. Here I was 8:02 A.M. Matthew Hagee was born. Physically flawless. And what I mean is ten fingers, ten toes, two eyes, two ears, one nose, one mouth, a head full of dark-beautiful hair. But while everything seemed to be perfectly fine on the outside, there was something significantly wrong on the inside, not in my physical being but in my spirit. My flesh was alive on July 22nd, 1978, but my spirit was dead. My soul was stillborn. I had the potential, but I wasn't alive.
Spiritually, all of the right ingredients were there except there was no sign of life. There was no glimmer of hope. There was no glimpse of existence because I was, as the Bible said, without hope, without God, outside of the covenants. I was born under a curse, and that curse is called sin. I was born in the image of a fallen man, and that man is called Adam. It's what the Bible calls the first man, and doctrinally, we call it the Adamic race. You and I were both born in the same race, the Adamic race, which is cursed of God because sin that Adam had committed in the Genesis of time. The problem is, is that when we look at other human beings we want to qualify them as innocent, and they're not. Heaven qualifies them as guilty.
How did I learn to sin? It came to me. How? Naturally. "Matthew, did you eat that cookie"? Crumbs falling out of my mouth. "Matthew, did you break this"? I was the master of disaster. I could take an anvil and tear it to pieces. And with all of the pieces and parts standing around me, "I don't know. I don't know how that happened". My sinful nature was present early on. Less than eight pounds, just a little bit over seven, here I am in the house not caring about anybody else's needs. I don't care if you're asleep at 2:00 in the morning. "Feed me"! Didn't live for nobody but me because I had a nature that was born in a corrupt fashion under the curse of sin because of Adam. This is why the Bible says so emphatically, "All have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God".
Everything looked fine on the outside, but in the courts of heaven I was carrying the same burden that every human being Carries. And it's important that you understand it because if you don't understand it, you will not fully appreciate nor recognize what Christ did on our behalf. One of the problems that we have in the world that we live in is we don't want to recognize the weight and the power of sin and the consequences that come with it. The Bible says this about sinners: "The wages of sin is death". And then it says, "All have sinned". You see, we may not look at the liar and say, "Well, I'm like them," or the fornicator or the thief. But the Bible doesn't say, "Hey, here's the group of sinners that are in trouble and here's the group of sinners that are not".
The Bible says, "All have sinned". That's why I can tell you that on July 22nd, 1978, even though I hadn't had much time, I was a sinner. And I was a sinner in need of a Savior, dead in my sin. Romans 5:12, "By one man sin entered the world and death through sin," thus sin spread to how many? All men because all sinned. You don't get to qualify yourself. We all had the same harsh reality: without Christ, we are dead. Not in need of improvement. God didn't send his son just to dust us off. God sent his son because without his son, we are dead. If you don't get this, you miss the free gift of salvation, and you have no compelling reason to share your faith with those who don't know Christ.
If you see sinners as people who just need a little improvement, then you don't have any compelling reason to go tell them, "Without Christ you're dead". You have to understand this in order to appreciate what it says in Ephesians 2:1. "And you he made alive who were dead in your trespasses and in your sin". "And you he made alive who were dead". If all you needed was improvement then he could've just helped you. But dead people don't need help. Dead people need to be buried. You see this cross in the middle of my tombstone here? 1978 Matthew Hagee is born physically alive but spiritually dead. If I was going to write a date here, it would say, "'84". Why? I was only six and the list wasn't long but it was strong. I was a sinner. And in 1984, over off of loop 410 in the a-frame building where the kids used to have Sunday school, brother Joe Kurz, who was my Sunday school teacher, he had the junior boys.
Back then we didn't have enough kids to make first grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade. We just had junior boys and senior boys, and I was in the junior boys class. There in the junior boys Sunday school class brother Joe asked, "Does anybody want to receive Jesus"? And I don't know why. But right then and there I said, "I do". And he said, "Come with me," and we walked out the door and down the hall, and we went to this corner of the building where there's an old water fountain. It was a nasty water fountain. But I didn't care. That sweet and precious man of God knelt down and he prayed a prayer with me. And I'm not going to tell you that the heavens opened up and the glory of God shone, but I can tell you I distinctly remember that something right in here suddenly changed.
And this child who was born dead just six years earlier came to life in Jesus Christ in 1984 and has been walking with the Lord ever since, not perfect but walking. John 3:16, "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him should have everlasting life". Ephesians 2:8, "It is by grace that you have been saved", how? "Through faith, not of", what? "Yourselves: it is the gift of God". Pretending like you did something somewhere along the way to make God want to save you, to make God want to love you, to make God want to forgive you, is absolutely wrong. You did nothing. God did it all. God did it all with his son Jesus. God did it all in his great love. God did it all through the power of his Holy Spirit.
God loves us. Why? Because 1 John 4 says, "God is love". Romans 5:8, "God demonstrates his love toward us that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us". 1 Corinthians 15:45-49 goes to describe our first nature and our second nature. In this passage of scripture, Paul is talking about the first Adam, who was the first of a race, and the second Adam, who is Jesus Christ, who is the first of another race. The first Adam in verse 47, he says was made of the dust, and the second Adam was the Lord from heaven. You need to know that your natural body is nothing more than a dirt suit. Somebody calls you a dirt-bag, they might be mean but they're not wrong.
Your spiritual body is not corruptible like the dirt suit Adam gave you. Your spiritual body is incorruptible because it comes from the Lord Jesus Christ. Your spiritual body, you're not going to get to put on until you see Jesus face to face. Verses 48 and 49 in 1 Corinthians 15, "Your natural body is made up in the image of Adam. Your heavenly body is made up in the image of Christ". And then in verses 50-58, Paul goes on to describe that flesh and blood, your natural corrupt body, cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven. He says, "Because corruption cannot inherit incorruption". And then in verse 53, he starts to say things that we'll get to in just a moment, but it talks about how the corruptible must put on the incorruptible, and the mortal must put on immortality.
What you need to see is the difference between the life that you were born with in your flesh, which is corruptible, and the life that you were born with in Jesus Christ, which is incorruptible. Why? Because the incorruptible identity that you have in Christ is the one that the enemy wants to steal. He's got your flesh. He got that back in Genesis. When Adam chose to disobey God's word and sin entered the world, understand this definition of sin in the Bible and it'll help you clean up some of your behavior. James 4:17, it says, "To him who knows to do right and does it not, to him it is sin".
Adam knew better. He just didn't choose better. When he ate the fruit, he knew good and well God told him not to. So before you start convicting Adam of his crimes, recognize that every time you know better but you don't choose better, you're sinning just like Adam did. The devil's not after your flesh. He's got that. The world, the flesh, and the devil, it's a Trinity that works together to keep you bound in chains. But when you come alive in Christ, when you've been made free because whom the son sets free is free indeed, when this great mercy and love and grace of God comes in and gives you this new life, that's the one that the devil wants to keep you from enjoying. Because the devil can't keep you out of heaven. That new life in Christ is incorruptible.
On the day that I received Christ in 1984, it was signed, sealed and delivered. I'm on my way to heaven. But do you know what the devil's been trying to do every day since I got on the list in the lamb's book of life? He can't keep me out of heaven, but he wants to give me hell on earth. "Oh, Jesus said, 'you're going to live with joy'? Let me make sure it's sorrow. Jesus said, 'you're going to have peace'? Let me make sure it's torment". And how does he do it? By trying to convince me that what Jesus did was not enough, that what I've received in this gift of salvation, there's something else that has to be done. He wants to keep me bound in the flesh. He wants to keep you bound and burdened instead of free. He wants to keep you confused in the culture and the chaos of this world so that the more confused and the more he can keep you in chaos, the more you'll begin to doubt the Word of God.
He wants to keep you away from this book as much as possible because the second you open this book and you start to obey it and you start to believe it, then he becomes a defeated foe and you become a victor and more than a conqueror through Christ. Go read what the Bible says in Galatians about the lusts of the flesh. And, yes, it starts with fornicators and adulterers. And we say, "Oh, that's not me". But then it gets down into bitterness, and it gets into contention. And it says that one of the lusts of the flesh and one of the chains that the enemy will use to bind you is fits of wrath. The more you begin to understand about your flesh, the more you realize how easy it is for the enemy to get you away from the word and get you bound up in these chains and in these shackles that Jesus has already died to set you free from.
You don't have to wear these chains. You don't have to wear these shackles. But if you listen more to the world and to the devil and the prince of the power of the air, you're going to spend more time bound up than you are freed up. And this is how you can be saved and walking in Christ and still have hell on earth! Only time you hear the Word of God is on Sunday? That's why you come back to church, "Oh, (sobbing)". That's why you talk about how you're hoping that Monday is a good day. Every day's a good day when you were dead and you've now been made alive in Christ. The more you walk around carrying these chains of bondage that Christ has come to set you free from, the more you qualify to put on again the yoke of bondage that Paul spoke of. He said, "Do not put on that yoke of bondage". "Whom the son sets free is free indeed".
But the more you walk around in these chains, the more you walk back into that old existence. And although you've been made alive with Christ, now you're so bound up in your bitterness and your anger and your rejection and in your wrath, you're wondering, "Did I ever really get saved? Did Jesus ever really do it? Is all of this true? Or is this just something that the preacher's trying to sell me"? "I tried Jesus and Jesus didn't work". Oh, no, he worked just fine. You tried him, but you didn't trust him. You heard him, but you didn't obey him. You listened, but you didn't learn. If Jesus Christ sets you free from those chains, don't blame him when you pick them up and start walking in them again. Because whom the son sets free is free indeed. Every shackle has been broken. Every chain has been shattered. He has made a way where there seems to be no way.
Galatians 4 says, "In the fullness of time, God sent forth his only begotten, born of a woman under the law to redeem those who were under a law that you might receive adoption as sons". Verse 7, "Since you are no longer a slave but you are a son, if you are a son then you are an heir and a joint heir through Christ Jesus". Your inheritance is not the lie that the devil is selling. Your inheritance is in God. It's through Jesus. It's by his blood. It's everlasting. It's an inheritance of hope. It's an inheritance of peace. It's an inheritance of power. It's an inheritance of joy. It's an inheritance of victory. It's an inheritance of provision. Do not let the devil confuse you nor the world lie to you. They have been defeated. They have been conquered. And whom the son sets free is free indeed! Give the Lord a shout of praise!
So how do we walk in this freedom? You have to put on Christ. How did I get this coat on this morning? It's amazing. I actually took it off the hanger. And I put it on. "Oh, it's so confusing. What do you mean put on Christ"? It's not confusing. John 1, go read it. "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God, and nothing was made that was made without the word". Go check out verse 14. It says something spectacular about the word. It says, "And the word became flesh. And it dwelt among us". If I'm going to put on Christ and Christ is the word and the word is true and the truth is what sets me free, then all I have to do is pick up the book and read it and obey it, and everything that I'm supposed to have in Christ is going to come on me. I don't have to do what the lust of the flesh says. I don't have to live in that bondage of addiction. I don't have to carry that hate because I have a living word that's inside of me that has broken that shackle and has broken that chain. And because of what Christ did, I am free because whom the son sets free is free indeed! Give the Lord a shout of praise!
Now, how do you do it? It's real easy. It's kind of like putting on this coat. You pick it up, you open it up and you read it. I know. Your mind is blown. But how many of us are walking around in chains, saying, "Oh, God, give me an appetite for your word". Shame on you. "Faith without works is dead". This book isn't going to float across the room. "Ah", land in your lap, mystically open up to the passage that God wants you to ingest, and then in the voice and tone of James earl Jones read to you the Word of God. That's nonsense.
But what makes sense is since this word came alive and dwelt among me and he died my death so that I could live in Christ and his resurrection has given me victory over death, hell, and the grave, why don't I do the work in faith of just saying, "Every day, Lord Jesus, I'm going to put you on. I'm going to read your word. I'm going to read your promises. I'm going to walk in your truth. And when I put you on by reading your word, and when I put you on with a garment of praise, and when I put you on in faith believing, I once again stand in the victory that you gave me over the world, over the flesh, and over the devil". This is why Paul said to Timothy, "I know in whom I have believed, and I believe that he is able". He's able to do what? "To keep that which I have committed to him until that day". Read that last line with me. "And keep what I have committed to him until that day" "That day" speaks of an exact moment that only God, the father knows.
But Paul wrote about it back in 1 Corinthians 15. I told you earlier we'd come back to it. Go to verse 51. And Paul says, "I want to reveal to you a mystery about that day". He says, "On that day we will not all sleep in death, but we will all be changed". In that day, in the moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet of God, the dead are going to be raised and they're going to put on incorruption. And we who are alive and remain, we shall be changed. We're going to take the corrupt suit off and put the incorrupt suit on. The mortal body is going to be here, but the immortal body is going to take a heavenly flight. And on that day that's when we're going to say, "O death, where is thy sting, and, o grave, where is they victory," for the sting of death and the sting of hell have been swallowed up in victory.
But thanks be to God, thanks be the God, thanks be to God, who gives us victory through Jesus Christ our Savior! Give the Lord a shout of praise! Give Jesus a handclap of triumph! Give the Lord a shout of victory in this house today! Thanks be to God, who gives us victory through Jesus Christ! Give the Lord praise in this house today!