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[0:00] Take out your Bibles with me please and turn to the Gospel of Luke, the very end of chapter 23, and we break into the beginning of chapter 24.

[0:29] From the end of Luke 23, beginning of verse 50, through chapter 24, verse 12. So if you're able, please stand as I read.

[0:43] Last week we looked at the crucifixion at Golgotha, the words of Jesus from the cross, and then Jesus who breathed his last.

[0:54] Now we come to the next part, verse 50. Now there was a man named Joseph from the Jewish town of Arimathea.

[1:09] He was a member of the council, a good and righteous man who had not consented to their decision and action. And he was looking for the kingdom of God.

[1:22] This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took it down and wrapped him in linen, in a linen shroud, and laid him in a tomb cut in stone where no one had ever been laid.

[1:39] It was the day of preparation, and the Sabbath was beginning. The women who had come with him from Galilee followed and saw the tomb and how his body was laid.

[1:53] Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments. On the Sabbath day they rested according to the commandment. But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared.

[2:09] And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. But when they went in, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel.

[2:28] And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, Why do you seek the living among the dead?

[2:44] He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and on the third day rise.

[3:04] And they remembered his words. And returning from the tomb, they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them, who told these things to the apostles.

[3:25] But these words seemed to them an idle tale. And they did not believe them. But Peter rose and ran to the tomb.

[3:40] Stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves. And he went away marveling at what had happened.

[3:54] So it reads. Let us ask the Lord's help. Father, open our eyes, particularly open our hearts, to hear not just what Luke has written to us about what happened, but that we might see how it relates to us, what difference all of this makes.

[4:18] And particularly as is Luke's intention, as he writes this gospel, he wants us to be certain about the things that we have been taught, particularly about the gospel.

[4:34] So show us the significance of the gospel in these words. This is what we pray in Christ's name. Amen. Please be seated. So let me ask you, do you believe that Jesus rose from the dead?

[4:54] Yeah. No. How important is the resurrection? Why does it matter? What if Jesus did not rise?

[5:08] Do you realize that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the pivot point on which all other Christian truth stands or falls?

[5:20] Without the resurrection of Jesus, no other Christian truth or doctrine would matter one bit.

[5:33] It all falls. Without the resurrection, Christianity itself is at best wishful thinking. Without the resurrection, there is no good news.

[5:48] There is no salvation from sin. There is no future hope. What do you believe? Luke is writing his gospel.

[6:01] Remember, he begins in the first four verses of his gospel that he has done research, that others have written about Jesus, and now he has compiled an orderly account in order that we might have certainty about the things we've been taught about Jesus, particularly what we've been taught about the gospel.

[6:27] So, we come to important teachings. Jesus laid in the tomb and then Jesus resurrected. He wants to write it in a way that we might have certainty.

[6:41] So, Luke 23 at the end records that Jesus died and was buried. He tells us in verse 50 about a man named Joseph, somebody we've never heard of until now.

[6:55] All four gospels tell us about this Joseph who suddenly shows up after Jesus dies who takes his, who is a rich man apparently because he's got his own tomb that he's had carved out that he apparently was getting ready for himself maybe and lays Jesus in this tomb.

[7:20] He tells us that just Joseph is from a place called Arimathea. He tells us that he was a member of the council. Remember the council? The Sanhedrin?

[7:31] At the beginning of chapter 23 they are the ones who decided. They are the 70 members of elders and chief priests and scribes, leaders of the nation of Israel who made the decisions.

[7:44] They are the governing body. Right? Joseph was one of them. But he also was a good and righteous man and as a man who did not consent to the decision or the actions of the Sanhedrin.

[8:02] They condemned Jesus. They turned him over to Pilate to have him killed. Joseph did not consent. He disagreed. He voted no.

[8:14] He was of the minority. He is a secret disciple of Jesus for fear of the Jews. being a high member and a ruling class guy now believing in Jesus has now stepped forward.

[8:34] So in verse 52 he asks Pilate for the body. He's risking exposure. Now he's coming out. But he loves Jesus. He wants to honor Jesus.

[8:46] He has a tomb. Jesus needs a tomb. John chapter 19 in his account of the death and resurrection tells us that Joseph didn't do this all by himself.

[9:02] There was another man by the name of Nicodemus that helped Joseph. Anybody heard of Nicodemus? Remember Nick at night? Right? John chapter 3. He was a ruler of the Jews.

[9:15] He was the, Jesus said, you're the rabbi. Right? And you don't understand rebirth, new birth. Right? That conversation. That Nicodemus now here again another secret disciple.

[9:28] Remember he went to Jesus at night. That's why we call him Nick at night. He goes at night for fear. Right? Secret disciple. Now he comes out.

[9:40] Interesting, isn't it? Jesus dies and these men who are following him secretly now want to honor him. Now they take his body. They wrap him in a shroud and bury him in a tomb.

[9:54] Technically, the Jews did not bury and not dig into the ground and bury somebody. They put them in tombs. So they were, in a sense, buried, but it was in what we think of as above the ground.

[10:08] It was their tradition. That's what Abraham did back, way back in the day. So we have the courage of faith of Joseph who steps forward and does this. And then in verse 55, we have women.

[10:21] There's women who are watching. He had come from Galilee. They had followed Jesus all the way from Galilee. They saw and followed Joseph, found out where he carried the body to the tomb.

[10:34] So he's, they're carrying this body, right, of Jesus to wherever the tomb is. So they're risking exposure on this, on doing this. They have to do it quickly because it's, the Sabbath was approaching.

[10:49] They only have a couple of hours, right, so they take the body down and they take it. John tells us that they applied a hundred pounds of spices to his body quickly.

[11:01] So the women were planning to do a lot more. They're planning to do the rest of it. They wanted to honor Jesus as well. So they knew where Jesus was put in the tomb.

[11:14] Verse 56, so they returned prepared spices and ointments that they had intended to put on him. And then the Sabbath they come, so they're resting on the Sabbath according to the commandment.

[11:26] So here's, here's the death and burial. Now, chapter 24, Luke is going to tell us about the resurrection. His telling is different. There's four records.

[11:39] Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all tell of the resurrection. All tell it a little different. Some have one angel, some have two angels. Some have one angel sitting on the stone, another one inside.

[11:51] Some have two inside. I don't know, I think there were probably angels everywhere. Kind of like at his birth, right? At his birth, there's lots of angels. At his resurrection, there's also lots of angels.

[12:02] They're there to announce things. But Luke has a different record. He records that he's raised on the third day.

[12:15] But as he tells this, I think we discover, what I discover in this is two surprises. Things we, we didn't expect.

[12:26] There's a surprise about the women because they're going to the tomb. They have no expectation of Jesus being raised. They expect to apply the spices to a dead body.

[12:40] And the second surprise, even more surprising, is the apostles. When they go to report to the apostles that Jesus is raised and all that happened to them, the apostles just dismiss it.

[12:51] And they did not believe that Jesus raised from the dead. Though Jesus had told them he would do so. Isn't that interesting? This is Luke's perspective.

[13:05] A little book, it, and remember, Luke's intention is to write to us a credible account that what we have heard we may be certain about.

[13:21] Later critics of Christianity all say that, that this story of the resurrection, the story, the miracles, were all made up by the later church. Right?

[13:32] That the gospels were written hundreds of years later by people making it all up. Now anybody can claim anything. But the facts are, the gospels are from the very first century and there's evidence of that testimony of manuscripts still available.

[13:58] And Luke is writing, if the story was made up, who would write it like Luke wrote it? Who would write it to make the apostles look like the worst followers ever who didn't believe?

[14:16] We wouldn't write it that way. That the women, the blessed women who are always there with Jesus, taking care of him, following him, also had heard him say he would raise and then go to the tomb as if that would never happen.

[14:36] Who would write it such a way? I think Luke is writing, he's writing the truth in a way that we could say, oh yeah, nobody would make up a story like this.

[14:51] It makes them look bad. They did look bad. So let's look at this. First of all, the first surprise is the women did not expect Jesus to rise from the dead.

[15:04] Note the hints. They get there. They get there on the first day of the week. When's the first day of the week? We call it Sunday. Right? Because we follow the Romans or whoever named it Sunday.

[15:15] The Jews called it the first day because it was the first day. The Sabbath was the last day, the seventh day. So it's the first day of the week. That's why we meet on Sunday.

[15:27] That's why we call it the Lord's Day. Right? Because the later church called it the Lord's Day because that's the day he rose on the first day of the week. They go on the first day of the week.

[15:38] They got their spices. They go very early just at first light. They go to bring their spices and note the hints. What do they find in verse 2?

[15:52] They find the stone rolled away. In one of the other gospels, the women on the way to the tomb are saying, who's going to move the stone for us? Because it's a massive stone. It's in a trench that, you know, so imagine the tomb on the side of a hill and then this round disc is rolled down and then to roll it back away you've got to roll it uphill.

[16:18] So it's, you need some strength to do it. They find the stone rolled away. How'd the stone get rolled away? Anybody know? Anybody know? Yeah, there was an angel quake.

[16:30] According to Matthew 28, there was an earthquake, Matthew says, because an angel landed, heavy angel, and who rolled the stone away and sat on the stone.

[16:44] So we know the angel did that, but they didn't know that. The tomb, then in verse 3, they find the tomb is empty. They expect to find the body. They expect to do the spices, but the body of Jesus is gone.

[16:57] And they're perplexed about this, verse 4. While they're perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. Now, we're not talking about two men who have fancy suits on.

[17:12] You know, the sparkly, the Las Vegas suit or something. Luke is giving us a description of what they saw. They saw two men. They appeared to be men, but there's something different about them.

[17:27] They're not just shiny clothes. They are flash, like flash, lightning flash. Like at the transfiguration when Jesus and Moses and Elijah were transfigured.

[17:41] They were shining. Okay, that's another clue. Who are these guys? Well, they're frightening because the women, verse four, verse five, the women are frightened and bowed their faces to the ground.

[17:59] And the men say to them, why are you seeking the living among the dead? Literally, they said, why are you seeking the living one among the dead?

[18:14] And they go on and they declare he is not here. He is risen. Just as he said, they don't, he is not here. Do you not remember what he said?

[18:25] Well, way back in Galilee, in other words, way over a year ago, back before you made this long journey to Jerusalem, back in Luke nine, remember that Jesus said, the son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised.

[18:48] That's the first time he told them. He told them three times on the way to Jerusalem that he would be killed, that he would be mocked, that he would be rejected, that he would be killed and he would rise on the third day.

[19:00] Every time he said on the third day, rise. Do you not remember that? Isn't that interesting? And after he tells them, look at verse eight, oh, now they remember.

[19:17] How do we forget that kind of thing? What struck me, okay, is here are these women and we need to be fair to these women and we need to be fair to dead people that we're reading about and their faults.

[19:33] We can say, how could they forget? Jesus told them, right? But we need to remember we're standing outside and we're kind of reading the story. We know those stories end and it's easy to criticize the people in the middle of the story.

[19:48] But it seems like, how do you miss that one? How do you forget that one? Why didn't they expect Jesus to rise when he had told them? Well, let me ask you a practical question.

[20:03] Have you ever not expected God to do something that he promised he would do for you? Really? And you knew better.

[20:15] You knew God had promised that he would never leave you or forsake you and yet you had times in your life where you felt like God had forsaken you? Yeah. That's pretty human, isn't it?

[20:27] Pretty obvious. Are there not times when you thought, well, this is going downhill, this is not going to be good, this is not going to work out and we forget Romans 8, 28 where God says, everything will work out, right?

[20:45] He will work everything out because he's conforming you to the image of his son. We forget that part, the conforming part, we just want it to work out. Well, we're just like these women.

[20:59] God has promised things to us and then we forget. We get overloaded. Remember what these dear folks are going through. They've been through a lot of stress.

[21:10] Jesus has been criticized. Jesus has been, the incredible torture he went through, the whipping and then the hanging on the cross. They're there witnessing this. They're seeing their Savior not save himself.

[21:26] And then he dies. He actually dies. can you imagine for them?

[21:37] He may have said that he would die and raise again, but when you see it, this is the man that nothing could hurt. This is the man that could calm the storm and the sea with a word.

[21:50] This is the man that raised people from the dead. This is the man that cured leprosy, that cured all kinds of impossible things to cure.

[22:01] And here he's just hanging helpless. And then he dies and he's buried and so I guess, I guess it just didn't work out. Imagine for them.

[22:15] They're tired. They've been with him all the time. They've been excruciatingly dealing with this. Remember, even in Gethsemane when Jesus is praying, the disciples, remember Luke said they were sleeping from, remember?

[22:28] Sorrow. Sleeping from, so already they know something's going on because they see Jesus praying in agony.

[22:39] They see drops of blood, right? He's so stressed. They're Jesus. So already they're just, oh my.

[22:52] Right? This is big. So they're maybe crawling in their hole. Their hole. At least the women are going to the tomb. There's some other men we didn't even know about that take him to a tomb.

[23:09] Why aren't the apostles doing that? There's women prepared to go prepare his body. Where are the men? The men are sitting, hiding in an upper room somewhere.

[23:21] I don't know. I mean, they've got to be so depressed. They've got to be so wiped out. I can only imagine. I'm trying to be fair to these guys.

[23:34] How could they not remember? Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15 how important the resurrection is to the gospel.

[23:52] to the gospel. Listen to what he says in 1 Corinthians 15. Paul says, Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, the gospel which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved.

[24:07] That gospel. If you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. So there's different beliefs.

[24:18] You know that, right? There is belief that saved, and there is belief that's in vain. Right? There's a kind of belief in Jesus that is not saving.

[24:30] And there's a belief that's true. Now, what's the gospel? He says, for I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received. Okay? So the apostles passed it to Paul.

[24:41] Paul's passing it to the Corinthians. That, here's the gospel, four things. That, Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. Okay?

[24:53] Yeah, that's the gospel. Died for our sins. Accordance with what the scriptures had said he would do. Two, that he was buried. Did you know that's part of the gospel? That he was buried.

[25:04] Three, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. And four, that he appeared to Cephas, that's Peter's other name, then to the twelve.

[25:16] Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of them who are still, most of whom are still alive, so you could ask them if they saw this, though some have fallen asleep.

[25:28] Then he appeared to James, meaning James the brother of Jesus. Then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

[25:40] Paul said. Remember, Paul got to see Jesus too. It was an enlightening experience on the road to Damascus. Remember that. So note the importance of the resurrection.

[25:52] The emphasis that Paul is writing about here is on the many appearances that verify the resurrection. How do we know he was raised?

[26:03] Just because Luke wrote it down? No, because hundreds of people saw Jesus after he raised from the dead. Remember that Acts tells us for 40 days he stayed, right, and kept appearing, right, and kept teaching 40 days until Pentecost, until the Holy Spirit came.

[26:31] He appeared, and the witnesses were not just a few, they were hundreds. He appeared multiple times to the apostles. apostles. So what does the resurrection tell us?

[26:42] Why? So the gospel is, he died for our sins, according to the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised, and that he appeared.

[26:56] He was buried to confirm that he died. He was raised. Why? Death is not the end.

[27:07] True. What did his death accomplish? Right? He died for our sins, and he paid for our sins. Our sins are forgiven because he paid the penalty of our sins.

[27:21] So if his death accomplishes that, what does his resurrection tell us? I know, I'm making you think. confirmation. The father accepted his death as accomplishing what he was to do.

[27:40] He raised him. He exalted him because he did accomplish. As he said on the cross, it is finished.

[27:53] It's done. It's accomplished. The father accepted his sacrifice. He exalts him on high. So, first surprise, we have the women who did not expect Jesus to rise from the dead.

[28:07] Second surprise is the apostles did not believe that Jesus rose from the dead. They did not believe the testimony of the women.

[28:20] So the apostles were told by the women who come to report, verse 9, they reported, they told all these things to the 11 and to all the rest. Who are the 11?

[28:32] I thought there were 12. Yeah, we lost Judas, right? So we're down to 11. So he, he, he, they come and tell the 11 and others.

[28:43] There's a bunch of people up, okay? By the time we get to Acts chapter 1, there's 120 people in that upper room. I don't know if there's 120 at this point, but there's still, there's a lot of people. There's a lot of women, a lot of followers of Jesus.

[28:55] Besides the apostles. Okay? So they appear to them, they tell them all. So they told them about the stone being rolled away. They told them about not finding the body in the tomb. They told them about these two men in dazzling clothes who said that he rose.

[29:12] And Luke tells us verse 10, who are these women? So that we might know who he, who, remember Luke interviewed people. He interviewed the witnesses. So who did he interview? He interviewed Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary, the mother of James.

[29:26] You know who Mary Magdalene is? She's always listed first, by the way, among the Marys. She was the one in whom Jesus cast out seven demons.

[29:39] She also apparently didn't have a high reputation. But once she started serving Jesus, she's always the first one mentioned. I love that.

[29:52] Because she loved him. She honored him. She served him all the way. So Mary, Joanna, the other, there's another Mary. Who's another Mary? There's a bunch of Marys, by the way.

[30:03] The mother of James. Who's James? It's not the James you think. It's not the James and John James.

[30:14] It's the James who's the brother of Jesus. Who will become, in the book of Acts, the prominent guy in the church in Jerusalem.

[30:25] He's the next oldest. After Jesus was born, Mary had several children. About at least five sons and at least a couple of daughters. And James was the next one in line.

[30:40] And Paul had told us that he appeared to this James. That's it. Hey, bro. I'm back. I don't know how that went. I don't know what their relationship was like.

[30:53] We're not told. He was not a believer in the beginning. Jesus' brothers didn't believe in him. Right? But now. So we have all these women.

[31:06] Then we have the response of the elders. Verse 11. Here's the shock. These words seem to them an idle tale.

[31:18] These women are just making things up. Now, were these guys chauvinistic? Are they treating women as if, you know, you're not a reliable witness?

[31:35] It almost sounds like that. I don't want to believe that. But it was an attitude of the day. It was an attitude of the day.

[31:47] Did these apostles have that kind of view? Would they so easily dismiss the women as witnesses? By the way, in the other gospels, who's the first one that sees Jesus risen?

[32:01] Who's the very first person that Jesus is? Mary Magdalene. Yeah. Not the apostles. A woman.

[32:14] And she goes, and they go very honestly, they go very joyfully, they go to tell the men, and the men just dismiss it. And then Luke adds, and they did not believe.

[32:28] Actually, they were not believing. So in other words, the women didn't just give one report. There were many women, and this woman's backing up this one, and this one's backing up this one, and this one.

[32:38] No, it's true. It's what happened, and this is, you know, they're filling them in, and they're still not believing. How do you get to that point? What were they thinking?

[32:54] when Jesus told them at least three times that he would go to Jerusalem, be rejected, be killed, and raise on the third day.

[33:12] How did they take that? I don't think they understood. They didn't foresee a savior like that. I'm wondering, you know, Jesus told a lot of parables, right?

[33:26] He spoke in a lot of things where the disciples just, they weren't tracking, they weren't getting it, right? He always had to explain the parable to them, right? I wonder if they thought maybe that's just a parable.

[33:39] He wasn't being literal, was he? Because they not only didn't expect it, but they didn't believe.

[33:54] I don't know. Luke doesn't tell us. He doesn't give us what was going on, but we can imagine with all that's going on, the heartbreak they're dealing with, maybe the depression that they're in, they just, they just, they're done.

[34:09] They can't even go to the tomb like the women. Wait, verse 12, there was one.

[34:21] There was one, but Peter rose and ran to the tomb. So apparently Peter didn't dismiss these women. Apparently Peter gave a little bit of credibility to these women.

[34:35] Because he rose and ran to the tomb. And by the way, the Gospel of John tells the same story. It wasn't just Peter, it was also John.

[34:46] And even though Peter started out ahead, John was faster. Now John can do that because he's writing his own Gospel. He can say that he's faster than Peter. So it wasn't just Peter, it was Peter and John who ran to the tomb after they heard what the women had to say.

[35:00] So there's at least two apostles, yeah, yeah, two apostles that took credibility to these dear women. So Peter ran, rose and ran to the tomb, stooping and looking in.

[35:13] He saw what? The linen cloths, plural, not just the shroud, but the other, what John describes as the face cloth.

[35:26] It was two parts and they were sitting separate. I believe it's John that says that the shroud was undisturbed. It wasn't like the body opened the shroud and stepped out.

[35:38] It's like the body passed right through the shroud. And if you've ever seen images of the Shroud of Turin, anybody seen that? You see an image of Christ.

[35:49] To this day, scientists don't know how that image got there. Because it's a photographic negative. It had to be a flash. Well, I bet when he rose there was a flash.

[36:04] And he didn't need to open the tomb and he didn't need to move the shroud. He just went right through. I'm not going to talk about the shroud today, but I think it's actually legitimate.

[36:16] Because they can't prove it's not. He looks in and he sees the lens. So he's got to be thinking. Okay, close. No body.

[36:29] If somebody stole the body, why wouldn't they take the cloth? And how would they leave it undisturbed? You know, it's got to be a lot of questions. So Luke tells us, he saw the linen clothes by themselves, right, with no body.

[36:46] And he went home. Well, he didn't go home. The word home isn't in the text. He just went away. Because home was way back in Galilee. He didn't go back to Galilee. He went away marveling at what had happened.

[37:01] Marveling. Not unbelieving. Marveling. Pondering. In John's account, in John chapter 20, you know, where there's the race and John wins.

[37:16] John gets there first, but then Peter kind of just pounds right by John and goes all the way in. Because John just goes to the opening. Peter, Peter, I got to see, goes all the way in.

[37:28] And it says that Peter saw, and he uses the word theoreo. Theoreo. Does that sound familiar? Theorize. Theory. Right?

[37:39] So he's not just seeing, but he's seeing with interest like he's trying to figure it out. Right? Gray clothes, no body, undisturbed. What happened?

[37:50] He's trying to put it together, right? And then John says that then John comes past Peter, goes in and sees, and another, John uses different words for seeing, and this time he uses the word for seeing, where when John saw, he saw with the implications.

[38:10] And he believed. So in other words, he's faster than Peter putting it together. When you write your own gospel, you can make yourself look good. But John did.

[38:22] He put it together quickly. Because remember, he had just heard what the women said. And the women said, don't you remember what he said?

[38:36] So it's not just their version, it's what Jesus said. So they go in and they see. And here's Peter walking away and just, now he's not theorizing, now he's marveling.

[38:48] Now he's, wow, could it really be? Could it really be? Oh, where is he?

[38:59] I want to see him. Is this what he meant? Is this what he meant? What is the significance of the resurrection?

[39:14] It is absolutely critical to us. Again, 1 Corinthians 15. Let me say it, let me just read what Paul says because I can't say it better than Paul.

[39:31] Paul said in Romans, in 1 Corinthians 15, 12, he said, now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead?

[39:43] So he's arguing with people that don't believe in resurrection. So he says, okay, let's think about the implications. If there's no resurrection of the dead, then even Christ has not been raised.

[39:54] And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. If he hasn't been raised, it's empty.

[40:05] For we are even found to be misrepresenting God because we testified about how God, that God raised Jesus, because we testified about God, that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise, if it's true that the dead are not raised.

[40:24] For if the dead are not raised, then Christ hasn't been raised. And if Christ hasn't been raised, then your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Wow.

[40:36] That's how critical. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ, those who have died before us, then they're just gone.

[40:52] If in Christ we have hope in this life only, then we Christians of all people are most to be pitied. Those stupid Christians have a futile faith and something that doesn't exist if Christ has not been raised.

[41:12] But, Paul's not done. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. The firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection from the dead.

[41:26] For as in Adam all die. Who's in Adam? Who's connected to Adam? Everybody?

[41:37] Everybody. So everybody connected to Adam? Die. And so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

[41:48] Who's connected to Christ? Not everybody. Believers. Believers. So all connected to Christ shall be raised. Have hope.

[42:00] Shall be made alive. But each in his own order. Christ first. Then, at his coming, those who belong to Christ. Without the resurrection, in other words, our faith is empty and futile and a waste of time.

[42:18] And more importantly, we are still in our sins. And we are to be people who are pitied. rightly pitied. If there's no resurrection.

[42:28] The resurrection, on the other hand, is absolutely essential to our salvation. It is proof that Jesus' death paid for our sins. We don't have a dead savior.

[42:40] It is a pivot point on which all Christian truth stands or falls. Without the resurrection, no other doctrine of Christianity matters one iota.

[42:52] Without Christianity, without the resurrection, Christianity is mere speculation and, at best, wishful thinking. Without the resurrection, there's no good news.

[43:03] There's no salvation. There's no future hope. So, as Paul said, if what we believe is not true, then let's eat, drink, and be merry, because tomorrow we die.

[43:17] I mean, this is it. If this is it, that's it. That's the way to live if this is it. But, in fact, he did rise from the dead. How can we know?

[43:30] Well, the scripture writes of hundreds of witnesses. You can dismiss that if you want. But there were hundreds of witnesses over a 40-day period of time.

[43:47] Now, the other thing you must take into account is these people who were witnesses, many also became martyrs for what they preached.

[43:57] And the other thing we must take into account is the utter radical transformation of these people's lives as a result, which led to martyrdom, among other things.

[44:15] When we get to the book of Acts, there is a light and day difference between Peter and John and James.

[44:28] The sons of thunder, thunder, for the right reason. When the Holy Spirit comes upon a person, when we are truly born again, not just believe, because I believe in those ideas.

[44:48] That's a faith that's in vain. I believed for 20 some odd years growing up, and my life wasn't changed. That wasn't a faith that saved me.

[44:59] I believed it was true. But when Christ comes into your life and changes your life, there's a whole different thing. There's a transformation of who you were, now who you are.

[45:17] And not just that you're different in what you do, but you're different in why you do it. Why you do it.

[45:27] You don't do it because you're supposed to. Or because, you know, you signed a contract. You do it because you love Jesus with all your heart.

[45:41] Where you may have hated the commandments before and hated God, though you wouldn't say it out loud, but you hated God. Now you love Him and the commandments are not burdensome.

[45:52] because I'd do anything for Him. So He did rise from the faith, from the dead.

[46:09] There are hundreds of witnesses. There are many who martyred. There are radically changed lives. We can look at all of that, and that is evidence, but it still comes down to faith. It still comes down to faith.

[46:24] So, do you believe in the risen Savior? Amen. And if you don't, I pray you come to see.

[46:38] I pray He opens your eyes and opens your heart. Because until He works, you won't get it.

[46:50] Let's pray. Father, we thank You for the witness of Luke who gives us, Lord, just straightforward stuff. He doesn't try to make anybody look good except for Jesus. And so we thank You, Lord.

[47:03] It's a believable account. because it doesn't look manipulated. It just looks like bare truth. And we can believe that that's how it happened.

[47:17] Because we're people just like those women and just like those apostles. Who, though You have told us things and promised us things, we still amazingly, we still will act like we don't expect You to work.

[47:31] We still will live like we don't believe in who You are. And so, Father, we confess to be like them.

[47:42] But we also pray like they did that You transform us, that You keep transforming us. Make us better believers, more believing. This we pray in Christ's name.

[47:53]  Amen. Amen.