Well, I'm going to pray and then say a couple of words by way of opening and then get to the reading of the text. And so let's pray. Our gracious God, we thank you and praise you. You are God and there is no other. We delight in you because you delighted in us first. And that for no good reason other than your beloved. For we were indeed unlovable. We were your enemies, lost in our sin, following our first father, Adam, and yet you, out of the great abundance of your love, sent your only begotten into the world to be a second Adam, and in him we have life and have it abundantly, and we rejoice. And so we come to you now asking that you will bless us as we gather together and yet having full confidence that you will. Lord, unite us together, knit our hearts together. We pray in this special communion season that you would meet us and that you would, through the communion, confirm our faith. We pray, Father, that you'll strengthen us. We pray that you'll enable us to look to Christ with zeal and vigor. And we pray, Father, that with unwavering eyes, through many toils and troubles, you will indeed enable us to finish the race at the time you've appointed. And so we pray these things, asking them in Jesus' precious name, amen. I said to you the last time that we were together, liberalism is not a surprise. to the church today. It's been with us for a long, long time. The same is true with skepticism, and it's about this time of year that we begin to see skeptics. Skepticism abounds. We see it on the cover of magazines, and we see it on history channels, and we see it everywhere. Sometimes, and sadly, we even see it in the church. But skepticism is not new, like liberalism. It's not new. In fact, the early leaders of the church, the apostles, dealt with skepticism. Even the gospel writers contend with skepticism. I want you to think for a minute about Matthew's gospel, chapter 28. Matthew was dealing with skepticism. There were those who said that the body of Jesus Christ had been stolen. And so Matthew, at least at one level, is dealing with skeptics in his gospel. And you remember that I said to you yesterday, in First Corinthians, Paul is dealing with scoffers, he's dealing with liberals, unorthodox in their thinking folks, who were saying, what about this resurrection body? Tell us, Paul, inform us, because they were unbelievers. And so, the apostles were dealing with objectors, they were dealing with scoffers, and it's important for us to do the same. Our text, our text, though in a slightly different way, is dealing with the denier. There is a sense which Luke 24 is an apologetic. Despite its narrative account, it's defensive in character. Now, it's offensive, too, but it is defensive in character, and we'll get to the reason why I say that. But it's an apologetic. But I wanna tell you something else about this text, something that's important for us. It's not just apologetic. You see, the apostles understood that they had to deal with deniers, they had to deal with scoffers, they had to deal with those who were unorthodox in their thinking, but they also knew this, and they knew it preeminently, they understood that they needed to encourage the church of Jesus Christ. They needed to strengthen and assure those who were brothers and sisters that what they were hearing was in fact true. And so this is a word of assurance. So let me take you to God's word. And let me invite you to listen to 12 verses from Luke chapter 24. And let me remind you before I read it that this is God's word. And when we say it's God's Word, we mean a couple of things by that at the very least. We mean, first of all, that God is true, and we say that God is infallible. And so the Word of God is true. This is God's Word. And then we say that the Bible is inerrant, that it doesn't wander from that truth. It, as God's primary author, says exactly what God wants us to hear. He says exactly what he intends to say. And so therefore, it is authoritative for our lives and we should hear it. So hear it, people of God. Luke chapter 24. But on the first day of the week at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. 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, 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? "'He is not here, but he 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.' "'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. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter rose and ran to the tomb, stooping and looking in. He saw the linen cloths by themselves, and he went home marveling at what had happened. Now, let me say to you that just in case it has escaped your attention, in the reading of the word, you'll have noticed that Jesus is not in this text. Jesus is not here. He is risen. I want you to understand the importance of this text at the very outset, and it will shed light on why I started with some comments about scoffers. We are living in a day when people will say, not just liberals, but people within the church will say that the empty tomb does not matter. that this account, the account that I just read to you, doesn't matter. Historically, it doesn't matter. For instance, I said to you yesterday that Dietrich Bonhoeffer in 1933 preached, or I should say lectured at the University of Bonn, and he said in those lectures, is the tomb empty? And his answer was, it doesn't matter. Because our faith doesn't rest on history, on whether or not that tomb was empty. Our faith rests upon the Christ of faith. The Christ who is in our experience. The Spirit of Christ. That's what gives us the power to overcome and arise. Now I want you to know that that's bunk. But I want to tell you that that is in the church. And the more evangelicals push those kinds of figures, though admirable on some level that they may be, it pushes their theology ever so subtly into the church to the extent that one Wheaton professor wrote in his commentary on John that we are sent many 18-year-olds who are the best fruit of the conservative evangelical church. And when we ask them if they believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ, they say no. But then he adds this, their piety runs deep. Now I want you to know something, that is Dietrich Bonhoeffer in a nutshell. He does not believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ, but his piety ran deep. I want you to know that Luke 24 is here to tell us that historically the tomb is empty. Jesus arose on the third day, and that matters. Now, as we come to the tomb, there are angels. There are two men. And these two men, the interesting thing about it is that these two men, these two men say, why are you here? Why are you here? Think about it. I mean, the real action happens on the Emmaus Road, the very next story, because that's where Jesus appears. That's where he appears to the Emmaus disciples and he reveals himself to them and they understand that they've witnessed the risen Lord, but here Jesus is absent and the angels say, why are you here? Well, I want you to know why we're here. We are here because Luke, not only is he writing an apologetic, but Luke Luke is encouraging us. He wants to minister to us. He is a pastor at heart, great physician though he is, he understands the human heart and he is seeking to pour grace upon grace into the hearts who read his gospel. So how are we going to come at this text? Well, I wanna come at this text with three points. I want us to first of all look at the apologetic witness of the text. I want us to look at the apologetic witness because that's important, it's here. The second thing I want us to know is the assured word. I want us to hear the assured word that's spoken in the text because it ministers to us, it ought to minister to us. And then I want us to notice the assessment of wonder. that is here in the text, the assessment of wonder. So let's first of all look at the apologetic witness, the apologetic witness. Now, you have heard that word before, but my guess is that if you don't run in theological context, that word simply means, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that. But this word in theological context is a little different than that. This word, apologia, means a reasoned defense. Now, a reasoned defense can come in a variety of different forms. For instance, you might hear R.C. Sproul saying something like this, giving us some argument for necessity, saying there must be something. Or maybe you'll hear somebody that's more of an evidentialist saying, something about the creation and the order of it, and so the teleological argument or the cosmological argument, those kinds of reason defenses. Or you might hear somebody saying that you need to start with God, because if you don't start with God, then you're not going to understand anything else, and that's a transcendental argument. And my point is, regardless of the type of argument that we're talking about, when we talk about a reason defense, we're talking about an apologetic. And so here we find an apologetic, a defense, a wonderful defense. Now, let me ask the question, what would a defense look like to the first century believer? Well, I think a first century defense would look like an eyewitness account, an eyewitness account. Now, I want you to understand something. When we think about doing history today, we don't typically think about doing history the way that the ancients thought about doing history. In fact, the ancients preferred an eyewitness account. You know, it's interesting for us. We like, professors like, first sources, sources that were written by primary folks involved in the issue. But here's the interesting thing. Oftentimes, you'll hear a history professor say something about an event that's happened within the last 20 years, and they'll say this. They'll say, we'll have to wait about another 80 years before we can assess that event. Now, by that time, people who are firsthand encounters are dead. And so they want primary sources, but the primary sources are a little different than the ancients wanted. You see, the ancient wanted the person who had been personally involved in the situation. They wanted to hear their account. And in fact, we get that from Papias. Papias talks about the historiography of the ancients. And you can read about that in a book called Jesus and the Eyewitnesses if you're more curious about that. But they wanted what was called a living voice. They wanted someone who was there. And in fact, if you look at the gospel accounts, you'll find that they're quite striking in the way that they're portrayed. Eyewitness accounts are throughout the four gospels. In fact, let me take you back to Luke's gospel, chapter one. Go back there with me for just a second and look at the opening lines of Luke's gospel, and this may stagger you. Listen to what he says. inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of things that have been accomplished among us. Now that word compile, we have allowed our 21st century understanding to inform our understanding of that word. But do you know, that word compile is an interesting word. It means to repeat from memory, or I should say this, it can mean to repeat from memory. Words have a range of meanings, and when you take one word from one language and move it over to another, you have to pick from a semantic range and put the best meaning into the text that you can think of. Now, this semantic range includes this meaning, to repeat from memory. He thought it best to compile a narrative, to repeat from memory a narrative. Now, where was he going to get his sources? He tells us, from eyewitnesses and ministers of the word. Eyewitnesses and ministers of the word. This whole idea of an eyewitness account was an apologetic account. This was a way of saying, here is an argument for what I am saying. Now woven into this, woven into this, we find three witnesses. Now that shouldn't surprise us because in our talk yesterday, we learned that there were five individuals or five sets of witnesses, people who saw things. And the women were important in that because they saw like witnesses. They observed with detail where Jesus had been laid. Now, I want us to think about this account here and now. There are witnesses here, and the witnesses in our text are the women. And if you go back to what we looked at yesterday in chapter 24, the women saw where he had been laid, and they went the next day to the tomb. The women are here reporting what they have seen and heard. Now here's the irony. The irony is that women's witness, a woman's witness was not considered reliable. If you notice verse 11, it says that their talk seemed like idle talk. Now, that would have been consistent with what people would have thought about a woman's witness in the first century. It was like idle talk. It was not reliable. It was not a credible source of witness. Now, I want you to think about that for a minute. When you think about the history of liberal theology, one of the professors that stands out is a guy by the name of F.C. Bauer. And F.C. Bauer is a guy who basically said that Jesus didn't really exist. And you say, well, where do we get the New Testament and the Gospels and the Book of Acts and so on? And he would have said this. He would have said, really, Christianity starts with an argument, an argument between two people, Paul and Peter. And Luke comes along and says, if this whole new Christianity is ever going to get off the ground, I need to make nice between these two figures. And so he writes the Book of Acts in order to bring Peter and Paul together. And he allows Paul to emerge as the dominant figure. Now, if Luke was really doing that, If Luke was really taking and fabricating something, why would he be so dumb as to make the entire testimony to the apostles that Jesus had risen from the dead? Why would he be so dumb as to base it upon witnesses that were unreliable? Why would he do that? Well, I'll tell you why Luke did that. Luke did that because it was true. Because these women did see where he was buried, and they did go to the tomb, and they did come back, and they did share what they saw with the apostles. And Luke actually names three of them. And he says, and why does he do that? Well, the interesting thing is if you look at the gospel accounts, the gospel accounts are eyewitness accounts. And Richard Bauckham, who writes that book, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, will talk about why is it that some names appear in older gospels and they're taken out in later gospels? Why is that? And his conclusion is that the witnesses that are included in the later gospels, they are still around. And so whoever happens to be the writer is saying, look, go and ask. And that's what Luke is doing. Luke is saying, these three women are alive today. Go and ask them. They will tell you exactly what they told the apostles. Now, we can't go and ask them today. But we have this primary source. that is, of course, written by Luke, who records their eyewitness account. But we believe that this isn't simply a human document. This is the Lord's word. This is God's word. It's a living and active word. This is a word that transcends mere human intellect. And that leads us to the next point I wanna share with you. There are two men in dazzling apparel. They are angels, and they are our next set of witnesses. And so they give us an assured word. Let me talk to you about that for just a minute. Do you remember Jesus? famous story, the famous story that he told in Luke chapter 16. The story that he told in Luke chapter 16 is the story of the rich man and Lazarus. Lazarus, you remember, was a beggar, and the rich man was the man who basically disregarded Lazarus, and they die. They both die. Lazarus goes to the bosom of Abraham. He goes to heaven, and the rich man goes to hell. Now, let me just stop and say something about that story. The richest thing about that story, there are many rich things about it, but one of the richest things that I can think of is this. The Lord knows the name of Lazarus, and the name of the rich man, the man of pomp and circumstance in this life, has no name. It's interesting to me that people try to give him a name, so when they talk about that story, they talk about Lazarus and Diabes, but Diabes is just a Latin word for rich man. He has no name. And the greatest thing about that is if you are known by Christ, He knows your name. That's the rich thing. That's the blessing of this story. But the rich man makes a demand. He says this. He says, look, Abraham, send someone to my brothers to warn them. Send someone to tell them that hell is real. And you know what Abraham says. Abraham says, look, and this is rich. Think about this. They have the Scriptures. That's what he says to them. They have the law and the prophets. They have the Scriptures. They have the Bible. And the rich man says, no, no, no, no, you don't understand. I understand they have the Bible, but if you send someone back from the dead, then they will listen. So please, send someone from the dead. And Abraham says, if they do not listen to the Scriptures, they will not listen to someone who comes back from the dead. Now, brothers and sisters, listen to me. We know that to be true. Because Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, and we know that there are people who do not listen to Him. And so if you do not listen to the law and the prophets, if you do not listen to the scriptures, you will not listen to one who comes back from the dead. Now fast forward, fast forward to the Emmaus Road. The Emmaus Road is a story that happens right after our text. There are two disciples who are downcast and Jesus appears to them. They don't know it. Not as of yet, it's kept from them, but Jesus has died and their world has unraveled. Do you remember what Jesus said to them? He said to them, you are slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. You are slow of heart to hear and believe the scriptures It's amazing. It's the same argument. It's the same argument winding through the text. And now, come back to the tomb. Come back to the tomb. And the angels, they meet the women. And what do they say to the women? They say, come here, you've got to see this. Look! It's empty. Do they say that? No, they don't say that at all. Although it is empty, and that it's empty matters. I'll tell you what they say. What do they say? They say, why are you seeking the living among the dead? He's not here. He's risen. And then this, verse 6. Remember what He told you. And what did He say? What did He tell them? He explained to them, for instance, the Isaiah Servant Songs. He explained to them the Scriptures and all that they had to say concerning Himself. It's almost as if He says this, look, you can go in because it's empty and that matters. and he's not there, praise be to our God. On your behalf, as these angels might say, he is risen from the dead. He has saved you. But you don't need to go. You don't need to look into the tomb because he already told you it would be empty. He already told you. It was told to you in the Scriptures. He explained the Scriptures with regard to Himself. You don't need to go in. You know that it's empty. I want you to know something. You know this and I know this. And this becomes important for us because we can't run to the tomb and look and see if it's empty and remember Luke 16. We have the Scriptures. Some people wouldn't believe even if they could peer into the tomb. But I'll tell you what, I'm not talking to the skeptic, I'm not talking to the scoffer, I'm talking to you. And I want you to hear some things that the Bible says, 1 3 of 1 Peter, listen to it, blessed be the God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Or 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians, in Adam I'll die, so in Christ all shall be made alive. And he goes on to say if Christ isn't raised, you're not raised. And if Christ isn't raised, you're still dead in your sins. And then this lovely, beautiful, reciprocal argument, if you are not raised, then Christ hasn't been raised. Think about that. We are so wed together to Christ. That what can be said about him is true of us, and what can be said about us is true of him. Now that's a word for us. But let me ask you this. What if you find yourself in the dark? What if you find yourself like these women? What if you find yourself in the dark? What if you find yourself in the place of the Emmaus disciples and your heart is downcast and all you can see is the road in front of you. You can't see any further than that. You believe that this one was the redeemer of Israel and now he's dead and you say to yourself, what now? We've invested our life in him, what now? Well, I'll tell you what, and Luke is wonderful in how he ministers to us, isn't he? He says, you know, Do what Joseph did in the darkness. He took his body and he laid it in a tomb. Do what the women do. What did the women do? The women take spices to his body to prepare it. You see, I want you to know this. I want you to know this. These folks are acting on little faith. the weakest of faith, but let me tell you what faith does. Faith is our response. It's our spirit-enabled response. Let me tell you what faith does. Faith is like a homing pigeon, and the home is Jesus Christ. And our faith, weak though it may be, will reach for Jesus Christ in the darkness. It will reach for Jesus Christ in our moments of despair. It will reach for Him when we feel weak. When we feel that we can't stand on our own two feet, our faith, weak though it may be, will reach for Christ. And so what do you do in the darkness? I'll tell you what you do in the darkness. You love Him. As weak as the expression may be, you love Him. What do you do if all you can do in your prayer is say the Lord's Prayer, then say it. If all you can do in your confession is say the Apostle's Creed, then say it. If all you can do is read a verse, then read it. Because in the darkness they loved him with the smallest expressions of faith, and sometimes the darkness gathers around our own lives, and the only thing that we can do is love him with the smallest expressions of our faith, and that's what we are called to do. because this word to us is a word of assurance. It's a word that lays hold of our heart and grabs us and pulls us to Christ. Now let me say a word about the assessment of wonder. This is our third witness. This is Peter. The women come and they report. They say to the apostles, this is what we've seen, and to the apostles it sounds like an idle word, but look at verse 12. And don't you know, there are buts in the Bible that are really important, right? There's Romans 3.23, but this is one of those buts that's just as important. But Peter. Peter doesn't say idle words, ladies, idle words. Peter heard these words from these ladies, and he ran to the tomb, and he stooped, and he saw that it was empty, and he went home marveling. Now, we could look at this and we could say what we typically say about Peter. We'd say, ah, poo-poo, Peter. Negative, negative, negative, Peter. Acting like Peter. But I don't think we should go in that direction. I want you to think about Peter for just a minute. He had been told by the Lord, he had been told by the Lord that he would be sifted like wheat. and that he would deny the Savior before the rooster crowed. And let me take you back to chapter 22. Look at chapter 22 and verse 60. And this is so painful. But Peter said, man, I do not know what you are talking about. And immediately while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed and the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Those words of the Lord Jesus Christ had come true. And now he hears that the tomb is empty. And you see, that resonated with what the Lord had taught them. And the women, and this is what they did. They didn't come speculating. I wonder if, no, they came proclaiming. They said, the tomb is empty. And Peter heard, and the angels' words reminded him of Jesus' words. And he said to himself, I'm not missing out this time. The Lord has spoken, and I missed it once, and I'm not missing it again. And he ran to the tomb. Now, the question is this. And we have to ask ourselves, because the text drives us to it. Peter said, I'm not missing out. And the question has to be, are we? Are you? Are you missing out? And I want you to hear me say this this morning. You may be missing out. You may not understand what I'm saying to you. Or it may be that you are just beginning to understand. And I want you to know that you don't have to miss out. I want you to know, I want you to know that the tomb is empty, but you don't need to see it. The tomb is empty because Jesus said it would be empty, and he testifies to all that the Old Testament says about him, that it would be empty, and it's empty. And Jesus is risen indeed, and you don't have to miss out on that. All you have to do is cry out, save me, Lord. Exercise that faith that reaches to the Savior, and you will be saved. Our gracious God, we thank you and praise you and delight in you and ask, Lord, that you will increase our faith and give faith to those who may not yet have it. Lord, we pray that you would enlarge Christ in our eyes and we pray that you will enlarge our hearts as we lay hold of him by faith and that alone, for we ask it in Jesus' name, amen.