Amen.
The title of my sermon this morning is Four Accounts of the Resurrection.
Four Accounts of the Resurrection.
And of course I'm talking about the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Now the gospel refers to the good news.
That's what the word gospel literally means, good news.
And in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, the Bible makes it clear that the crux of the gospel,
of the good news about salvation through Jesus Christ, is that salvation is through the death,
burial, and resurrection of Christ.
And often people will just say, hey, the gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection
of Jesus Christ because that's sort of the Cliffs Notes version of the gospel.
If you want to put the gospel on the back of a postage stamp, you know, we're
talking about the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.
So of course this is a common element in all of these four gospels.
The gospel according to Matthew, he tells the story of the Lord Jesus Christ culminating
in his death, burial, resurrection, and then all the witnesses of the resurrection.
You see there are certain elements that are not contained in all four gospels.
Certain stories that are only found in one gospel or the other.
Each of them is including and leaving out different details.
But of course one thing that the four gospels all have in common is they all contain the
crucifixion account, right?
They don't all talk about his birth, right?
But they all talk about his crucifixion.
They all talk about him being buried, him being risen, and of course also his appearing
unto various resurrection witnesses.
And different accounts of this in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John tend to emphasize different
things and teach us different truths.
Now obviously I don't have time this morning to go through all of the teachings of each
of the four gospels on the resurrection, but I'm just going to sort of pull out one
key point from the account in Matthew, one key point from the account in Mark, one
key point from the account in Luke, and John, and so forth, just to sort of show
you how each of these four gospels, they have something unique to offer.
Of course all four of them are witnessing to the same event, corroborating the testimony
because we know that this is a real true historical event, that Christ literally died
on the cross for our sins, his body was buried in the tomb, and three days later
he bodily rose again from the dead, and so we have these witnesses giving that account.
But also we have four accounts to give us different spiritual truths and to teach us
different things about this.
Now first let me mention that typically when you read the book of Matthew you see right
away or understand the fact that it seems to be more geared toward the Jews than
the other gospels.
The book of Matthew is constantly quoting the Old Testament and talking about scripture
being fulfilled from the Old Testament, whereas the book of John, for example, has just
a more of a universal audience in mind.
In fact it's clearly being written for a non-Jewish audience because throughout the
book of John it will keep explaining things that would be obvious to a Jew, like, hey,
you know, the Jews have this feast called the passive, you know, the Jewish, here's
what the Jews do, and it's talking about them like they're a third party and we might
not necessarily as a reader be familiar with what they do or what they believe because
it's clearly being written to a non-Jewish audience.
Of course Mark and Luke, they have their particular emphases as well.
And so let's start out with the account in Matthew 28.
And the thing that I want to emphasize about Matthew 28's version of the resurrection
is that it really emphasizes the Jewish rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ and the
gospel now going to all nations as opposed to just being something particular to Israel
where the Jews or Israel are God's chosen people.
Rather we see in Matthew 28 where they by and large end up rejecting the gospel and
it ends up going to all nations and it becomes mainly Gentiles that are Christians
in the long run, even in the short run actually.
But it says in Matthew chapter 28 verse 1, in the end of the Sabbath as it began to
dawn toward the first day of the week came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see
the sepulcher, behold there was a great earthquake for the angel of the Lord descended
from heaven and came and rolled back the stone from the door and sat upon it.
His countenance was like lightning and his raiment white as snow and for fear
of him the keepers did shake and became his dead men.
So when Christ rose from the dead, the stone is rolled away from the tomb and this
angel comes down from heaven to do that and it's obviously a shocking sight.
It's like lightning, there's a bright glow and so all of this sort of just knocks
out the guards because they're guarding the tomb because if you remember the rulers
of the Jews had come to Pilate and said, hey you know we're afraid that his disciples
are going to steal him by night so we want you to put guards around the tomb to
make sure that that doesn't happen.
So the guards are there, they're watching the tomb and then when this angel comes down
like lightning, you know it says in verse 4, for fear of him the keepers did shake and
became as dead men.
So they're just kind of astonished, blown away, knocked over, the light is in their
face and it says the angel answered and said unto the women, fear not ye for I know
that ye seek Jesus which was crucified.
He is not here for he is risen as he said, come see the place where the Lord lay and
go quickly and tell his disciples that he's risen from the dead and behold he goeth
before you into Galilee, there shall ye see him, lo I have told you.
The first thing I want to point out is that Christ is going to appear to his disciples
in Galilee.
What's the significance of Galilee as a place?
Well the significance is that this is not exactly a hub of Judaism or Jews or Judea.
This is outside of Judea, this is a place that the Jews despise.
They say, hey can any good thing come out of Galilee?
We also have a scripture that talks about Galilee of the Gentiles.
The people which sat in darkness have seen a great light and to them which sat
in the region of shadow of death, light is sprung up and so Christ is going to meet
with them in Galilee which is symbolic of the fact that the emphasis is shifting toward
outside of Judea, toward the Gentiles, we're going to reach all nations with the Gospel
of Jesus Christ.
Then if we jump down just a little bit, we find the part where the soldiers have
to face their bosses, right?
So it says in verse number 11, now when they were going behold some of the watch,
these are the guards or the ones who were watching the tomb, came into the city and
showed unto the chief priests all the things that were done.
So think about this, these soldiers, they show up and they say look, we're watching
the tomb, there was a bright light, the stone rolled away, there was this guy, he
was glowing, he looked like an angel, you know, they're describing whatever they saw
whenever this happened and they tell this to the elders.
Now instead of the elders and the chief priests saying, well wow, we really screwed up,
looks like maybe this guy really was the son of God and we crucified him and now he's
risen from the dead, instead it says in verse 12 when they were assembled with the
elders and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers saying, say
ye his disciples came by night and stole them away while we slept.
So they're saying look, let's not hear about the light, we don't want to hear about
the angel, we don't want to hear about the stone rolling away, here's a lot of
money and we want you to just say that his disciples came and just stole them in
the middle of the night. Now obviously you can see why the soldiers wouldn't
necessarily want to say that because they had one job, make sure the
disciples don't come and steal them in the middle of the night and it's not
like Jesus's disciples are some kind of a, you know, commando, shock, assault team or
something, you know, seal team 6, seal team 12 or something, you know, coming in
and taking, you know, these guys are trained soldiers, they're supposed to be
guarding the tomb and so they have to give them a lot of money to get
them to say that the disciples came and stole them by night and then they
reassure them, it says in verse 14, if this come to the governor's ears, you
know, where you guys are gonna get in trouble for messing this up, we will
persuade him, we will secure you, like don't worry about it, we're gonna make
sure you don't get in trouble for doing this and you can see that the
Jews here, the elders, the chief priests, the religious leaders of the Jews, they
really don't want people to believe that Jesus rose from the dead, they want
to cover this up, they want to hide it, they'll spend any amount of money, they
don't care, because of the hardness of their heart, they're not even willing to
entertain the idea that maybe Jesus Christ really was who he said he was,
maybe he really did rise from the dead and then it says in verse 15, so they
took the money and this isn't necessarily all of the soldiers, right, it
said some of the watch came into the city and told the priests what was
done, the elders and so forth, and then it says they took the money and
did as they were taught and this saying is commonly reported among the
Jews until this day, so when the Gospel of Matthew is being written, he's
saying, hey, the Jews are still claiming that his disciples came and stole them
away by night. Of course, this doesn't really make a lot of logical sense for
the disciples to come and steal him away. Number one, because they didn't
even, the Bible tells they didn't even really know or understand the
scripture that Christ would raise from the dead, so they didn't
necessarily understand that, but let's say that they did, why would they go
and steal him away by night and then claim he rose from the dead when they
know he didn't? Why would they dedicate their whole lives to something that
they knew was a lie? Why would they go and literally be killed or go to
prison and go through all these trials and tribulations? I mean, think
about it, James is going to be killed by the sword, Peter is going to
be martyred, they're going to be persecuted and thrown in prison for
this, why would they dedicate their lives to something that they knew was
a lie because they knew that they really just stole him away and
whatever? It really doesn't make any sense, but these people are
hard-hearted, they don't want to believe, and so if people don't want to
believe, they're going to find an objection, they're going to find an
excuse not to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and so we see just how
hard-hearted the rulers of the Jews and the chief priests are, Jesus is
saying, hey, meet me in Galilee. Meanwhile, what's happening in
Jerusalem? The Jews are conspiring to fight against the gospel to cover up
the fact that Christ rose from the dead to tell a lie about it, and it
says in verse 16, then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a
mountain where Jesus had appointed them, and when they saw him they
worshipped him, but some doubted, and Jesus came and spake unto them, saying,
all power is given unto me in heaven and on earth, go ye therefore, and teach
all nations. So it's not a coincidence the way this chapter is laid out, hey,
we're going to Galilee, the Jews in Jerusalem are totally rejecting
Christ as Savior, and then it's like, boom, we're in Galilee, and where are we
going? We're going to go teach every nation. Earlier in the book of Matthew
it said, the kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation
bringing forth the fruits thereof. Not a physical nation, but a spiritual nation
made up of all believers, red, yellow, black, and white, not just a physical
ethnic nation of the Jews, or something like that, or a geographic
nation in Israel. And so that's one thing that's really emphasized in this
Matthew 28 account of the resurrection. Now I did mention here that when they
saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. Go to Mark chapter 16, because Mark
chapter 16, the truth that I want to pull out in Mark 16, is that the
doubt is really emphasized in Mark chapter 16. Now the doubt of Christ's
disciples in Mark 16 doesn't necessarily surprise us if we've really studied
the book of Mark a lot, because the book of Mark, more than any of the other four
Gospels, really shows sort of human weaknesses and human failing of Christ's
disciples. It seems like in the book of Mark, more than in the other Gospels,
Jesus is kind of rebuking them for not understanding things. They kind of
say stupid things and get told off by Jesus repeatedly in the book of Mark.
They're not quite seeing things as clearly as they should be, so when we
get to chapter 16 of Mark, the fact that they have a lot of doubts, it
really fits in with the rest of the theme of the book of Mark, the fact
that they are doubting. Now of course the doubt was mentioned in
Matthew, but it's more emphasized in Mark chapter 16. And by the way, let
me just mention this. The modern Bible version crowd, those who reject the
traditional text of Scripture that we've had for thousands of years, and
what we've had in English, what we've had in modern English for like 500
years, right? You say, what about before that? Well before that, you're getting into
Middle English. You're getting into a different language, right? Modern English has only been
around for like approximately 500, 600 years. But the point is that in our
English Bible, for the last 500, some years, even before the King James, even with
Bibles like Tyndale and, you know, the Matthew Bible, the Bishop's Bible, look, we've
had a traditional text of Scripture that God has preserved. It's been passed
down. It's been providentially preserved and kept pure in all ages. And
we've got the Word of God today, but now all of a sudden you have all these
eggheads in universities. Many of them don't even believe in the
resurrection of Jesus Christ, but they're, you know, German theologians and
German scholars and scientists and people that are now trying to
reconstruct the original text of the New Testament. Folks, it ain't broke, so don't
fix it. It's been passed down. We've got the Word of God. It's preserved. We've got the
traditional text. God has been the custodian of His Word for the last
2,000 years. But you have the modern version crowd, the NIV crowd, the New
American Standard, the ESV, whatever. These modern versions are created by
people who believe that Mark chapter 9, or, excuse me, Mark chapter 16, verses 9
through 20 is not authentic. Okay? They reject Mark 16, 9 through 20 is not
authentic. Now, they still published it in their Bible because what it is is
they're trying not to freak people out. They're trying to wean people off of it.
Eventually they will just totally get rid of it. And by the way, they also
reject the story about the woman taken in adultery. He that is without sin
among you let him first cast a stone at her. They don't believe that that's
real either, but they still print it because they're trying to wean
people off of it. Let me tell you something. Those are authentic portions of
the Word of God that Christians have always loved, believed, preached. In fact,
these are some of the most cherished portions of Scripture that are under
attack today. Why do people love them so much if they're not God's Word? You
don't see people just in love with a bunch of other spurious Scriptures. Why
are people in love with Mark 16, 15? Why are people in love with the story
of the woman taken adultery? Why are people in love with 1 John 5, 7?
Because they're the Word of God! And because the Holy Spirit inside of the
Christian testifies to him that they are the Word of God because God's Word
is self-authenticating. We don't need a scientist or a historian or an
archaeologist to tell us what God's Word is because never man spake like
this man. And so we hear the voice of the shepherd. We know that which is
authentic and God's people have universally accepted these Scriptures as
authentic. But if you follow these bozos that want to remove Mark 16, 9 through
20, what you're left with is a really weird ending for the book of Mark.
Super weird. They want it to end at verse 8. Look at verse 6. Let's back up
to verse 6 of Mark 16. And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted. Ye seek
Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified. He has risen. He's not here. Behold the
place where they laid him. But go your way. Tell his disciples and Peter that he
goeth before you into Galilee. There shall you see him as he said unto you.
And they went out quickly and fled from the sepulcher, for they trembled
and were amazed. Neither said they anything to any man, for they were
afraid. What a great ending. People are scared. They're not telling anyone
about the gospel. They're not telling anyone about Jesus. I mean, what a
bizarre place to end. But you know what? The church down the street where
they're preaching the NIV, where they're preaching the ESV, where they're
preaching the HIV, whatever, they believe that this is where this ends.
Their Bible has this all bracketed out like, well, this
probably isn't real. If you ask the pastor if it's real, he's probably gonna tell
you no. That's why he's using these new perversions of Scripture as
opposed to the traditional test that hasn't been mutilated, okay, and cut up
like Swiss cheese. By the way, here's just a little fun fact if you're
superstitious, is that there are 678 verses in the book of Mark, so if you
take off the last 12, you're left with 666, and the book's called Mark, so
put that in your pipe and smoke it. But again, you know, maybe you're not
superstitious. I'm not asking you to be superstitious, but that is a little
weird, okay? Might be a coincidence, but the point is, this is not how the Gospel
is supposed to end, because we've got four Gospels, and they all end the same
way. They all end not only with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ,
but we have the post-resurrection appearances of Christ. These are an
intrinsic part of the formula, my friend. You have Christ's death, his burial, his
resurrection, and then you have the appearances, the witnesses to his
resurrection. Now, people will come along and say, well, these last 12 verses just
don't feel very, very Markan, you know? They're not, they're not kind of
Marky Mark, you know? They're not, they're not very Markan of it, but first of
all, that's silly, because we don't have enough of Mark's writing to make
that kind of a judgment. We only have one book, it's, you know, we have 16
chapters. That's not, we don't know all the styles or ways that Mark is capable
of writing them, number one. Number two, the average person who just reads the
Book of Mark is not going to feel like these last verses are different.
They're not going to be like, whoa, who wrote this? Feels the same, but not only that, I
just finished telling you that one of the themes in the Book of Mark is
sort of the disciples' slowness to understand and their slowness to believe
their doubts, which is a theme that is hammered in this last section. Okay, and
first of all, by the way, let's say someone else other than Mark is
responsible for the very end. So what? Who cares? Because guess what? I don't
even know who Mark is. Well, he's Peter's nephew, okay, big deal. I don't
believe the Book of Mark because Mark wrote it because I don't even know Mark.
I believe the Book of Mark because it's awesome, because it's the Word of God,
because it's inspired by the Holy Spirit. If it had two authors, who cares?
I don't care if it had five authors, because ultimately the Holy Spirit's the
author, and holy men of God speak as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. So
this thing of rejecting the Book of Mark's ending, and by the way, it's only
based on two manuscripts, two lying false witnesses, sort of like the two lying
false witnesses who stood up at Jesus' trial, and even their testimony didn't
agree. The two biggest lying witnesses when it comes to the Bible are
Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, and they don't even agree with each other half
the time, and these mutilated manuscripts leave out these passages.
Everybody else has got them, okay? And so don't be deceived, my friend. Mark 16,
verses 9 through 20 is authentic. It is the Word of God. In fact, it contains one
of the most famous verses in the New Testament, which is verse 15,
go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. I mean,
that's a pretty popular verse, pretty famous passage. Why do Christians love
it so much? Because the Holy Spirit loves it, that's why. But the Bible
says, in Mark 16, 7, where we just read, go your way, tell his disciples and
Peter. Now, Peter's one of the disciples, so why does he say, go tell
the disciples and Peter? Doesn't that seem a little bit redundant? But the
idea here is that Peter has denied Christ, and because he denied Christ, he
feels really bad about that. He went out afterward and wept bitterly, and so
what Christ is trying to emphasize here is that he still loves Peter. He
still considers Peter one of his disciples. He wants him to come, bring
him to the party, because Christ has not forsaken Peter. Just because Peter
failed and did something stupid and denied the Lord, Christ is not done with
Peter. We get more detail on this in John chapter 21, where we have a special
encounter where Jesus confronts Peter about his denial and so forth, and he
reinstates Peter, because he wants Peter to serve him. Again, the emphasis on
human failure, right, because we're kind of drawing attention to Peter's
failure by bringing him up separately. The disciples and Peter, that's again
emphasizing the fact that he just denied the Lord shortly before. Then it
says in verse number 8, they were amazed, they didn't tell anything to any
man for they were afraid. Now, here's the thing, if it stopped there, that's a
lie, because they do eventually tell people. So if you stop at verse 8, it's
a lie, it doesn't match the other four Gospels. But in reality, this is just on
the way to go tell the disciples they don't talk to anyone else. Once they get
to the disciples, they do talk to them. Look at verse number, so we see some
human weakness, we see some human emotions here, we see Peter's denial of
the Lord, we see the women, they're scared, they're not telling anyone the
good news yet. It says in verse 9, now when Jesus was risen early the first
day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast
seven devils. You know, why do we got to bring that up? Notice that Christ
is using imperfect people, he's using people who've got some problems. Peter's
got a problem, he denied Christ. Mary Magdalene is someone who was so demon
possessed she had literally like seven demons in her, and Jesus had to
cast out these seven devils, and yet he appears to her first. What's God
trying to show us in this passage? He's trying to show us that he uses human
beings to do his work, to carry out his will. He's not looking for perfect people, but
rather he's willing to use us, human and imperfect, as we are. And the fact
that the disciples are not these kind of supermen who don't have any
problems or issues, you know, that's encouraging for us when we think about
some of our own human weaknesses and failings. We understand, hey, God can use
me too, if he can use this former demoniac woman, if he can use Peter who
denied Christ even well after he'd been saved for years, he made that huge
mistake, then God could use me, right? You say, well, I just don't know if I
have the faith that can move mountains. Well, the disciples didn't
necessarily have that mountain moving faith either, did they? And so the Bible
says in verse 10, she went and told them that had been with him as they
mourned and wept, and they, when they had heard that he was alive and had been
seen of her, believed not. Look, this feels pretty Markan to me because of the
fact that, again, it's emphasizing the doubts that when she comes and says
that she saw Jesus, they're like, no, we don't think you really saw him. They don't believe her.
Verse 12, after that he appeared in another form unto two of them as they
walked and went into the country and they went and told it unto the residue,
neither believe they them. They didn't think that these guys were telling the
truth either. Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meet and
upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart because they
believed not them which had seen him after he was risen and he said unto them,
go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. So instead of just having the
one phrase mentioning the unbelief or doubt in Matthew 28, here we have three separate mentions
of their doubts and also some mentions about some people that have screwed up royally and so
the emphasis here is on the fact that God can use us as imperfect as we are. You know,
in order to be saved, the one thing we have to do to be saved is to believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, right? The Bible says that whosoever believeth in him should not
perish but have eternal life. The Bible says believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and
thou shalt be saved for by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves
it is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast. But once we are saved,
once we've believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, we are eternally saved. Nothing can separate
us from the love of God. No man can pluck us out of his hand. We shall never perish.
We've been passed from death into life and we will never just totally stop believing
in Jesus. People who say like, oh I used to believe in Jesus, they're just lying
because they never did or they believed in the wrong Jesus or they believed something
stupid about Jesus. They didn't believe the actual gospel of Jesus Christ or they'd
still believe because once you're saved, you're saved forever. But after you're saved
though, it is possible for you to make big mistakes, for you to sin, for you to
even have doubts. And in fact, I think that if Christians were honest, probably everybody
would admit that at some point they've had doubts. Even John the Baptist, the greatest
man who ever lived according to scripture, he doubted and said to Jesus, art thou he
that should come or do we look for another? And this is after John the Baptist
had already pointed at him and said, behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the
sin of the world. I saw the Holy Spirit descending on him like a dove and lighting
about it. Then later, he's like, are you the Messiah? You know, like, art thou he
that should come or do we look for another? He's at a low point. He's doubting.
We've all doubted. I've doubted. If you're honest, you've doubted. But that
doesn't change the fact that we're saved because we have believed on the name
of the only begotten. Now if somebody says, oh I'm an atheist now. I'm an agnostic
now. Well then, you know, they just never were saved in the first place. But those
of us that are saved, yes, of course we continue to believe, but that doesn't mean we're
never gonna have doubts, okay? And so God can use us in spite of our doubts. I
mean, look, the disciples came to Jesus and said, Lord, increase our faith.
Increase our faith, Lord. And he said, well if you had faith as a grain of a
mustard seed, you'd be able to say to this mountain, be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea and
nothing would be impossible for you. Now, did the disciples have that kind of power?
That tells me that Jesus is telling them, your faith is smaller than the size of a grain of a mustard seed.
You want me to increase your faith? Well, you got a long way to go, buddy, because right now
your faith, if we were to put an actual magnitude on it, it's like a grain of sand.
But was that enough for them to be saved? Absolutely. Is that enough for them to be used by God?
Yes, it is, right? So obviously we want to have as much faith as possible. The more that we walk in the
Spirit, the more faith we're gonna have. We grow in faith. We go from faith to faith. We have
the fruit of the Spirit, which is faith, but we're human. We're never gonna be perfect.
We're never gonna have perfect faith until we get to the next life. And so here we see an emphasis
on imperfect people and doubting in Mark 16. And you know what? It all flows nicely with the
whole rest of the book of Mark, so I don't even know what these so-called scholars are talking
about. But they're always eager to prop up their little archaeological finding, their exciting
little Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, that should have just, you know, Sinaiticus should have just
stayed in the trash where it belonged. And Vaticanus should have just stayed in the dark,
evil reaches of the Vatican or something where it belongs. Okay, let's go to the Gospel of Luke.
What's a special lesson we can get from the Gospel of Luke? I feel like the Gospel of Luke
is the best place to go to really drive in the fact that Christ's resurrection was a literal,
physical, bodily resurrection. And you'll often hear people say that Matthew is sort of
directed at the Jews, Mark is sort of directed at the Romans, Luke is sort of directed at the
Greeks, and John has as more of a universal audience in mind. So if we were to kind of go
with that hypothesis about Luke, you know, it would make sense because if you remember when
the Apostle Paul is preaching to Greek intellectuals in the book of Acts on Mars Hill on the
Areopagus, he talks about the resurrection and that's where a lot of them scoff at the
resurrection. You know, they had an issue with the resurrection. The Greek thinkers and
philosophers, they struggled with this idea of the resurrection. You know, to the Greeks it was
foolishness unto them. And so maybe that's part of the reason why the Gospel of Luke in
particular really hammers the literal, bodily aspect of the resurrection. We don't want to
think that the resurrection of Christ is sort of a spiritual resurrection. This is what
cults like the Jehovah's Witnesses teach, that, well, it's not a bodily literal resurrection,
it's just a spiritual resurrection or whatever. This is what a lot of, you know, modernists
and people who are liberal, who reject scripture, reject the miracles of the Bible.
You know, well, you know, he resurrected because they kept his teachings alive or,
or it's just sort of a ghost or phantom resurrection or whatever. But what does the
Bible say? Look at Luke 24 verse 36. And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of
them and saith unto them, peace be unto you. But they were terrified and affrighted
and supposed that they had seen a spirit. So they think it's a ghost. You know, Jesus is here
with us, but they don't think he's literally physically there. They think it's an apparition.
It says in verse 38, he said unto them, why are you troubled? And why do thoughts arise in your
hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself, handle me. He said, look, touch me,
handle me. I'm here, I'm physically here, I'm not just a spirit. He says, handle me and see,
for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as you see me to have. And when he had thus spoken,
he showed them his hands and his feet. Of course, this is where the nails had pierced
his hands and feet. That's why he's showing those things in particular,
showing that he's the same person.
And while they yet believe not for joy, so they're kind of just in shock or
doubting. They're so excited. All right, I need to deploy another Ricola here.
Got the hardcore liquid center Ricola, so hopefully this will fix it.
While they yet believe not for joy and wonder, he said unto them,
have ye here any meat? Now, Jesus Christ is particularly asking for food.
It's not that he's just trying to bomb a meal here. Like, obviously,
Christ doesn't just really need food. Hey, I showed up because I figured it was dinner time.
He's literally eating with them just to make the point that he's physically real
and that he's not a ghost. That's the whole point. He could have eaten before this,
he could eat after this, but he shows up and says, have ye here any meat?
And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish and of a honeycomb. Right? So they're giving
him stuff to eat. They're giving him food. He's getting some protein, some fat, some carbs. He's
got all his macronutrients here between the fish and the honeycomb. But he's not there
for the nutrition folks. He's showing them that he's not a ghost because he's actually eating
food. And he took it and did eat before them, verse 43. And he said to them,
these are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you,
that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses and in the prophets
and in the Psalms concerning me. And so that was the main thing I want to show you here
in Luke 24 is just the emphasis on the bodily aspect. I mean, if somebody just said,
show me the strongest proof for a bodily resurrection is where I would take them.
You know, cause it's like he's saying, handle me, touch me. I'm not a spirit cause the spirit
have not flesh and bone. As you see me, I have flesh. I have bone. I'm eating a meal.
These are my hands and my feet. And the Jehovah's witnesses are like, it's not bodily
because they don't care what the Bible says. Cause they're full of baloney.
The second most powerful scripture I would take people to is John chapter two. If you wanted
to just flip the page to the right, a few pages, John chapter two, where Jesus says in verse 19,
destroy this temple. And in three days I will raise it up. And then look at verse 21,
he spake of the temple of his body, destroy this temple talking about the body. And I will
raise it up. What's he going to raise? He's going to raise the body. And by the way,
death burial and resurrection. Do you bury a spirit or do you bury a body? You bury a body.
Jesus gave up the ghost on the cross. His soul descended into health for three days and three
nights. Okay. Jesus Christ bodily died on the cross. His body was buried in the tomb.
And three days later, his body rose from the dead. Lastly, let's go to John chapter number 20,
John chapter number 20. Now the interesting thing about the book of John is that it has all of
the elements that we need in the gospel. It's got the story of Christ's ministry.
It's got Christ's crucifixion. It's got his burial. It's got his resurrection. It's
got the resurrection of witnesses like we see in all the gospels. But then in chapter 21,
it has this bonus chapter that is tagged on here. It's a wonderful chapter. I love John
chapter 21. It was one of my favorite chapters in the book of John. I absolutely love it.
But it's clearly written by someone other than John.
Because literally in John chapter 19, it says, he that saw these things testified and he
knows that he says true. But then in John chapter 21, it says, we know that he says true.
This disciple that testified to these things, we know he's telling the truth.
In John chapter 19, he's talking about himself saying, he is testifying to you right now. I'm
him. I'm the guy. And I know I'm telling the truth. Whereas we change pronouns in chapter 21
to, well, we know that is those who are writing John chapter 21, that he, John said true.
That's why in John chapter 20, it feels like the gospel is over at the end of John chapter
20. You have a clear ending. And what's funny is that John chapter 21 kind of repeats the
same ending. It has like another similar ending, right? And again, this is why we need to get
over the fixation and obsession on who physically, which human wrote which part,
because ultimately the Bible is written by God. The Bible is written by God. It's inspired
by the Holy ghost. And so we don't need to, it's not like, well, I believe it because I
trust, I just really trust John. I'll trust Luke because he's a doctor.
Folks, I don't trust Luke because he's a doctor, a doctor who hung around with Paul.
Is it why I believe in him? I trust the Holy spirit. I trust the Bible. I trust God.
It's the word of God, not the word of man. It's the word of God. And so again,
we don't want to get obsessed with the authorship and, and John chapter 21 is sort
of a bonus chapter because we already have fulfilled everything that we would expect in a
gospel. By the end of chapter 20, we even have an ending, but John chapter 21 is such an
awesome chapter. So I'm not saying that it's, you know, superfluous. It is a great chapter
and it's supposed to be there. It's God's word. Everything in this book is supposed to
be the way it is. It's God's perfect word right here, preserved for us and in our English
language so that we can read it in our own tongue. It is the inspired, perfect,
infallible word of God. And so what's emphasized in John?
Well, one thing that is a big emphasis in John is faith for salvation, right? Believing
for salvation. In fact, over 90 times in the gospel of John, the Bible says, believe right?
More than the other three gospels, John is telling you how to get saved because all of
the gospels are telling you the story of Christ, the preaching of Christ, the crucifixion of
Christ, his resurrection and so forth. But the one that really hammers the how to get saved
aspect is the gospel of John, which is why it says believe over 90 times.
Here's a word that's missing from the gospel of John, repent.
So it's kind of funny how the book that tells you how to get saved
doesn't even use the word repent. And then you have people coming along and saying like,
well, how dare you leave out repentance when you preach? Well, how dare John
write a whole book to tell you how to get saved. And look, I'm 100% for repentance.
But when people talk about repentance and salvation, they typically screw it up.
And they say you have to repent of your sins to be saved. Well, then we're all going to hell
because you show me one person on this planet who is repented of all their sins.
There is not a just man upon the earth that do with good instead of not.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. And the truth is not as everybody's
a sinner was like, oh, I repent of my sins. Yeah, I repent of my sins yesterday.
And I'm going to repent of them again tomorrow. And I'm going to repent next week
and the week after that. Why? That's a continual process because we're not perfect.
We're human. Repentance is a continual process for the Christian.
Salvation is not a process. Salvation is a one time moment when you believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now, does repentance have anything to do with salvation? Yes. In the sense that if you
believe a false religion, you have to repent of that false religion so you can put all your
faith in Jesus. So if you're Buddhist, you must repent of Buddhism and believe in Christ. Why?
Because it's impossible to have your faith in Christ while you're still trusting Buddha.
It's impossible to have your faith in Christ while you're still a Hindu.
It's impossible to have your faith in Christ and say, well, no, I still believe in the,
you know, traditional Native American religion and, you know, I'm doing both.
No, my friend, you have to turn to God from idols. You can't be bowing down to some false
God idol and then turn around and say that you're fully trusting Christ as your Savior.
It doesn't work, my friend. You turn from Islam to Christ. You turn from atheism
to Christ. You turn from Buddhism to Christ. Why? Because Christ replaces these things.
Does everybody understand? I can't say, hey, Chevron has all my allegiance. Meanwhile,
I'm gassing up a shell. I'm still going to keep my shell credit card. I still am
going to gas up a shell, but I'm trusting Chevron with Tekron or whatever. You know,
you can't do that, right? Look, you got to go all in with Christ to be saved.
You don't have to have much faith. You can have faith that we'd have to look at under
a microscope it's so small, but as long as you put it all in Christ, you're good to go.
But you can't be trusting Islam. You can't be trusting Buddha. You can't be trusting,
you know, Hindu gods. It's got to be all Jesus, my friend.
That is what it means when we say repent and believe the gospel. It means you change from
not trusting Christ to fully trusting Christ. You can switch from a false religion to Christianity
because repentance is just a switch, right? You can switch from I don't believe Jesus
is the Messiah. Now I do believe Jesus is the Messiah. That's repentance, right?
So here's the thing. Is it possible to give the gospel without mentioning repentance?
Absolutely. Because if you're telling people to fully trust Christ,
it's obvious or implied that they would have to stop trusting in something else.
If I said, look, man, the only Mexican restaurant you could ever eat at again is Chipotle.
I don't have to explicitly tell you no more Taco Bell because that's already implied.
Does everybody understand? Now I might say you turn from Taco Bell to Chipotle.
Now does turning from Taco Bell to Chipotle make sense?
Folks, I can't hear you. Yeah, it does. Okay.
So here's the thing. Turning from Shell gas to QT, that makes a lot of sense too.
But here's what doesn't make sense. Let me give you a statement that makes zero sense.
Hey, you know what? I'm switching from Shell to Chipotle.
That doesn't make any sense because one of them is a gas station and one of them is
a restaurant. What if I just said, you know what? I'm done with Pogo stick and I'm switching to
Chipotle. Does that make any sense? Because I can use a Pogo stick to get to Chipotle.
These things are not mutually exclusive. Now are Christianity and Islam mutually exclusive?
Yeah, you can't do both. Islam teaches that God has no son and the core teaching
of Christianity is that Jesus is the son of God. They can't fit. Does everybody understand
what I'm saying? So you can't switch from basketball to ice cream. That doesn't make sense.
You can switch from frozen yogurt to ice cream. You can switch from basketball to baseball.
Does everybody understand what I'm saying? Some of these things you could even do both.
But if we said, hey, you're done with ice cream. It's all frozen yogurt now.
You repent from ice cream and now you're fully trusting in frozen yogurt to meet your dessert
needs. Now maybe these are silly illustrations, but you want to know what's really silly? You
want to know what's really stupid is you turn from sin to Jesus. Is sin the opposite of Jesus?
Is it impossible to believe in Jesus and sin at the same time? Because guess what? Everyone
who believes in Jesus still sins from time to time. Do people who believe in Jesus never sin?
And I'm sorry that I always do a southern accent when I impersonate false gospel,
but I'm just going to go with it, okay? I'm sorry. I apologize in advance.
You know, these preachers are like, you know, bless God. You're still sinning and you're
claiming to believe in Jesus. You know, you're not safe. Folks, let me tell you something.
Everybody who believes in Jesus still sins from time to time because they're still living
in the same sinful flesh. There is nobody on this earth who has just totally stopped it.
Well, you know, you just got to be willing to stop. You got to stop a little bit. You know,
shut up. You got to believe in Jesus to be saved. It's faith. You're saved by faith,
not of works. Repenting of your sins is a lot of work. Takes effort, work, diligence,
and it's a process, and we're never going to totally finish it in this lifetime.
So this whole thing of we turn from sin to Christ is as absurd as me saying,
well, I turned from baseball to T-bone steak. It doesn't make any sense because it's not like,
well, there's sinning over here and then there's Jesus over now. Now there's Buddha over here and
Jesus over there. That makes sense, right? Hey, I was trusting Buddha. Now I'm trusting Jesus.
I did pray to idols. Now I pray to God. I did do the Quran. Now I'm doing the Bible.
That makes sense. Here's what doesn't make sense. Well, you know, I did shoplift,
but now I'm, you know, I do, I believe in Jesus. Now here's the thing. I hope you're not
a shoplifting Christian because shoplifting is super wicked
and it violates the 10 commandments. Thou shall not steal. The Bible in the New Testament says,
let him that stole steal no more. But guess what? Christians are still capable of stealing.
Christians are capable of being prideful. Christians are capable of envy.
They're capable of gluttony. They're capable of laziness. They're capable of murder. Even
let me ask this. Do you think any saved Christian has ever had an abortion before?
I do now it's wicked. It's murder. It's sin, but it's out there. Look folks,
we have people in the Bible who were saved, who did things like commit adultery,
commit fornication, commit murder. These are wicked sins that you get punished for on this life.
But let me tell you something. God does not save those who are sinlessly perfect.
God saves those who believe in him. And so this turn from sin to the savior crap is a lie.
It's false. Okay. You turn from Buddha to the savior, turn from Islam to the savior,
turn from trusting in your own works and your own self-righteousness to trusting in Jesus
righteousness. But in order to turn from one thing to another, they both have to be in the
same category. Okay. And to sit there and say that you have to turn from your sins and,
and you know, if you're not willing to turn from your sins, you can't be saved.
Then who can be saved? But they're like, well, you just have to turn from a certain list
that we have, you know, because they're, you know, bless God. When I got saved,
I never craved a cigarette one more time. Meanwhile, bro's a hundred pounds overweight,
but he never craved a cigarette, but it's funny how he craved Twinkies.
It's funny how he kept on craving all the junk food and trash that made him a hundred
pounds overweight. Okay. Now look, I don't know about you. Look, I, I don't smoke.
I don't chew. I don't go with girls who do. I'm totally against smoking.
And let me tell you something. Smoking is really bad for your health.
You shouldn't do it. It's stupid. Don't do it. It's addictive. It's bad for your health,
but you know what? So is being a hundred pounds overweight.
So is being 200 pounds overweight. And so, you know what? If I see a Christian,
that's 200 pounds of weight, I'm not going to doubt their salvation and say like,
you're not saved because you're fat. No, the narrow is the way and you're not going to
fit. You know, I'm not, I'm not going to say that to them because let me tell you something.
There are a lot of fat Christians that are going to go to heaven when they die. Amen.
Tons of fat people today, millions of fat Christians are going straight to heaven because
they believe in Jesus. Well, guess what? There are a bunch of Christians who smoke
who are going to heaven too. If God's going to allow the fat Christians, he's got to allow
the smokers because it's whosoever believeth. And if you're damaging your health in one way
or the other, guess what? All of us have faults and you know, it's easy to pick on fat
people, but you know what? We can pick on all of ourselves. We all do stupid things.
You know, some people sins are more apparent, but you know what? I got just as many sins
as fatty does. They're just not as obvious. You know what I'm saying? Because we're all human.
We've all sinned and come short of the glory of God. Some men sins are open beforehand and some
men they fall after. But look friend, it's easy for some guy to get up and say, well,
I never craved a cigarette again. But then he's craving all this other junk that's just
as bad for you. It doesn't make any sense because he's a liar and a fraud. That's why.
And I don't care if he's skinny as a rail. I don't care if he's ripped like
a prizefighter and saying, hey, you know, I never craved a cigarette again. You're a liar
because everybody who's been a smoker, you know, they want one every once in a while.
Who here, if you don't mind admitting it, who would say I used to smoke and every
once in a while a cigarette sounds good? Now we got a three year old with his hand up.
Okay. Who would say, hey, I used to smoke and hey, yeah, because guess what? That craving is
going to be there. What kind of stupidity says, oh, you just get saved and you just
magically never crave a cigarette again. You just never want to sin. Then why does the
New Testament spend so much time warning us as Christians how we need to be careful
and guard ourselves and avoid temptations if we're just automatically not going to sin
anymore by virtue of being saved. It's garbage. Salvation is by faith. Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and thou shalt be saved. Salvation is easy. Jesus did the hard part when he died on
the cross for us. Let me just, I'm out of time. So let me just wrap up with one thing
from the book of John here at the very end of the book of John. It says in verse number
24, Thomas, one of the 12 called Didymus was not with them when Jesus came.
The other disciples therefore said to him, we've seen the Lord, but he said to them,
except I shall see in his hands, the print of the nails and put my finger into the print
of the nails and thrust my hand into his side. I will not believe. And after eight days,
again, his disciples were within and Thomas with them. Then came Jesus. The doors being
shut and stood in the midst and said, peace be unto you. Then say to Thomas,
reach him with thy finger and behold my hands, reach him with thy hand and thrust into my
side and be not faithless, but believing. And Thomas answered and said unto him, my Lord and
my God. That's what he's calling Jesus. Jesus says unto him, Thomas, because thou has seen me,
thou has believed. Here's the key. Blessed are they that have not seen and have yet believed.
Look, all of us here today, we haven't literally physically seen Jesus, but we all
believe in him. And then it says this many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of
his disciples, which are not written in this book. And this is what I mean about the ending
at the end of chapter 20, but these are written that you might believe that Jesus is
the Christ, the son of God, and that believing you might have life through his name.
This book is written, not giving every part of every detail about Christ's life and ministry.
My wife's out of town, so I got to do a little double duty here.
Look, the Bible is not written telling us every single detail about Christ's life and ministry,
which is why Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John contain different details, right? But John is saying,
look, this particular assortment of details about the life of Christ is given so that you
would believe in Christ and that believing you might have life through his name. He's saying
it's specifically written so that you would get saved. That's why these things are chosen.
That's why the word believe is used over 90 times. That's why we don't have this big emphasis
on turning from sin as the way to get to heaven because that would be a workspace salvation.
And so I hope that this morning you got an appreciation for the four separate accounts
of Christ's resurrection and understand that while they're all consistent and they're all giving
us the essentials of the death, burial, and resurrection, they also kind of have their own
unique information to bring to the table or their unique emphasis. And so as we read the
word of God, as we think about the resurrection today, you know, maybe one of these points
resonates with you more than others. You know, maybe you're one who was struggling with what
it takes to be saved. You're not a hundred percent sure that you're on your way to heaven.
You know, talk to somebody. Virtually anyone in this room can explain to you how to be saved.
And our church is filled with people who would love to explain to you how to be saved because
it's just as simple as just fully trusting in Christ, putting your faith in Christ.
It's saved by faith, not by works. Okay. Maybe that's what you needed to hear today if
you're one who is either not saved or maybe you're saved, but you've had a bunch of people
come at you with a bunch of junk and false doctrine. And so we could, we could kind of
strengthen you and solidify you on salvation by faith alone. Maybe you're one who has a really
rough past and maybe even after you were saved, you screwed up royally like Peter did.
You know, God's not done with you. God can still use you, right? You know, maybe you're
one who doesn't understand that God's will is for all men to be saved and that we're
supposed to teach all nations the gospel, right? And maybe you're one of these, you know,
kind of Jew worshiping, Israel worshiping types. You understand? No, no, no. In the
New Testament, it's about the Gentiles receiving the gospel, you know?
And of course, Luke is just such a great passage on the bodily resurrection.
You know, just removes any doubt about what the resurrection actually is. And so I hope that this
morning you would be inspired by this powerful truth from the word of God, that Christ died on
the cross for our sins, according to the scriptures, that he was buried and that he rose
again the third day, according to the scriptures. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word.
Thank you for this day to celebrate your resurrection. Of course, we celebrate the
resurrection every Sunday, Lord. And please just bless all of us as we go our separate ways.
Please help my stupid cough to go away, Lord. And in Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.