Good morning and welcome to Fredericksburg Bible Church. Nice to see you all here today. Carry on, carry on. Take your time. It's always good catching up, a little fellowship with one another, and of course with the Lord. So let's begin with some reading from his word. Hebrews chapter four, verse twelve. For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit of both joints and marrow and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Scriptures are quite piercing indeed. So your willingness to come and to hear it shred you to pieces like it does me every week is always an encouraging idea. Second Timothy two fifteen all believers are responsible for this by application. But this was written by Paul to Timothy. Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, handling accurately the word of truth. Scriptures are the truth. The word of man is the lie, and the next chapter tells us the source of the scripture, which is the veritable God for all scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching. For reproof for correction for training and righteousness that the man of God may be adequate equipped for every good work. Scriptures are training manual for living the Christian life pleasing God and of course first John one nine the believers given mechanics to be restored to fellowship when he commits known sin of course all of our sin is instantly forgiven positionally at the moment of faith alone in Christ alone but the way in which God has decided to deal with our sin in our experience after we become a believer is by the confession of no sin For if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So we want to take a moment here in the privacy of our own soul and confess any known sin to the Lord that we might be in fellowship with him. And so let's begin with that and then a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, as we come to the text today, we ask Lord that you would help us to understand what you have written and the great things concerning your appearances, the burial and the appearances of the Lord Jesus Christ. Both on the day of the resurrection itself, as well as the 40 days which followed and then to the one much later to Paul and to really appreciate the resurrection body that the Lord Jesus Christ came forth from the tomb in. And some of the fascinating text which expound and. Leave us asking tremendous questions about the nature of the resurrection body and. Wonderful wonderful thing to think about all that is in store for us who will also be raised and we ask more that you bless the teaching of your word and may we have a greater appreciation for the Lord Jesus Christ who is our savior who died and rose again. for our sins, and is the one who justifies us. We thank you, Lord, for the blessings of this great word that you have given us in the scriptures. And we ask that we might proclaim it without fear, but with courage. And we ask these things in Jesus' precious name. Amen. All right. As always, I kind of want to encourage Family training, this is also just between husbands and wives, if you don't have any children at home or whatever. But if you do have them at home, that's that's great, too. And one of the things that I like to do as far as keeping up family worship is going through the great events of the Bible and the doctrines related to those events. So always have a normal schedule. And, you know, the first event that we will teach will be the creation event. The doctrines of God, man and nature. So what I'll do is I'll teach the event of creation, you know, the six days and Genesis and so forth, the seventh day arrest. Then we'll talk about the nature of God, his attributes. You know, God is sovereign. He's righteous. He's just he's loving omniscient. I'm the president. I'm omnipotent, immutable, eternal. Sergei Louis is your little acronym to kind of remember those Sergei Louis. Then we'll go to man who has corresponding attributes to God because man's made in the image of God. So, man has choice, he has conscience, he has knowledge, but it's all finite, of course. He takes up space, he's not immutable, but he's changeable, and so forth. And we'll go through man as a corresponding creature made in God's image. And then look at nature, that man was designed to be the Lord over nature. And so you have God, and he's in the open box because he's infinite, and you have man and nature. within creation, and this sets up the categories for understanding the rest of the Bible. Then we'll teach the doctrine or the event of the fall and go through Genesis three, and then we'll teach the doctrine of evil and suffering. All evil in the world, all death, all suffering is a consequence ultimately of the fall in history. And then we'll go to the flood, the flood of Noah. And this one, well, it teaches a lot more. So let's start over flood and we'll go through the main doctrine, which is judgment. Salvation, this is just a quick overview. We don't do all this in one time, of course, the doctrine of judgment, salvation, when God judges, he's also saving. There are several subtruths here. There's grace before judgment. God always gives grace before judgment. He doesn't just judge. He gives men an opportunity to respond to him. Then we have. There's only one way of salvation just as there was only one arc. So there's only one way of salvation. And that's pictured by the flood. It's appropriate that the promise of salvation is appropriated by faith. And we'll go through all these these truths appropriation by faith. And then when God does judge there's perfect discrimination. that is if you are on the arc you were saved whether you are a man or animal. And if you're off the arc you were judged. So there's a perfect discrimination in the judgment salvation. And then finally we teach that there was a whole new world after the flood. That man was told to go out on and have dominion and so forth and to trust God that he would protect him in the new world. Then we go to of course to the Noahic covenant and that's where God makes a covenant with all man and nature. So even puppy dogs and kitty cats get in this one. God made promises to them, too. And this one and there are four parts to a covenant. This is where we learn about the structure of a covenant and God's way of running history is according to covenants. And the first one is there are parties. You know, God on one side, man and nature on the other. To there's a founding sacrifice. God doesn't come into man into a covenant with man apart from a sacrifice. A life must be given. The third thing we always go to and say that there's also terms of the covenants the term of the Noahic covenants that God would never send a global flood on the earth to destroy all flesh. OK, and then fourth, we look at the sign that God always signs. You know, when you go sign a contract, I think you know how you sign your name. You get tired of signing your name. Well, God signs his name every day, all the time. Somewhere in the world, there's a rainbow. And this rainbow is the sign that is finds its ultimate source around the throne of God, according to Ezekiel. And so God is when he looks upon the rainbow, which there's always one there in the world somewhere. Then he remembers his covenant. That he will never flood the earth again. Then we go to something like the call of Abraham. In Genesis 12 and see, we're just marching through the Bible chronologically to keep up our knowledge of God, our growth according to what God has done and what God has revealed in doctrine. At the call of Abraham, we look at three doctrines, the doctrine of election. Faith and justification. OK, so very important doctrines and understanding these elections got part of God's plan. Faith is man's proper response. Justification is what God does for every man that puts their faith in his promises. And then we go on to the exodus. So. You see, we just build and we keep on building. We keep on going and we can do more of this and following weeks. But it just gives you an idea of a way to move through the Bible systematically, chronologically, in an understandable fashion that covers both the events as well as the doctrines that are most commonly associated with those events in the Bible. OK. All right. Today, though, we're looking at events that occur in the New Testament that relate to the death of the king and the resurrection of the king. And those are also two events, but they would be come along in the New Testament. And this is in first Corinthians 15. OK, now, last time we looked at the gospel and the gospel is the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the son of God. This time, we're going to look at the historical evidences of the gospel, namely the burial. And the appearances. The historical evidence of the death is that he was buried. The historical evidence that he rose is what we call the appearances. Now, these are not the gospel, but they are just the historical evidences of the truth of the gospel. And as I said last time and many times, Christianity is rooted in space, time, historical events all through the Bible. The truth of the Bible hinges on whether or not the event the Bible describes actually occurred or not. And so, for example, you might say, well, if the human race did not fall in a literal Adam, the one man Adam that God created the first man. If the whole human race did not fall in the literal Adam when he ate the fruit that was forbidden, then there's no fall of man in sin. And if there's no fall of man into sin, well, then there's no salvation in the one man, Jesus Christ. So the Bible is logically interconnected. And this is why there has been such a debate over the historicity of the early chapters of Genesis, because Satan is smooth. And Satan knows that if he can undermine the early chapters of Genesis, say the creation, then he can completely undermine the cross. work of Jesus Christ, because if all didn't fall in Adam, then all cannot be saved in the one man Jesus Christ. It's just logically all put together in Romans 512. So. These things in early Genesis are not just little stories, little bedtime stories, but they are true history and they are telling us about the nature of God. They are telling us about the nature of man. They are telling us about evil and suffering, the problem of man. They're telling us about the nature of salvation and who designed that plan and how man can get right with God through substitutionary blood atonement. All that is very clearly in the first three chapters of Genesis. And we can't just, you know, pick and choose what we like. I mean, this isn't a rubber Bible. You know, we twist it whichever way we want. No, the Bible is an integrated whole. And if you distort it early on, well, that catapults all the way through the Bible and You might as well not even believe any of it. We are standing upon the integrity of the Scripture because we hold to the integrity of God, who is the ultimate author of the Scripture. And the Scriptures tell us that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. They tell us that God sent forth his Son in the fullness of time. They tell us right here in this chapter that he died for our sins according to the Scriptures and that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures and that he appeared to Cephas and then to the twelve and so forth. And since we've already looked at the death and the resurrection, and we're going to now today briefly look at the historical evidences of the death and resurrection, namely the burial and the appearances, particularly the appearances, because I think you'll see that even his closest followers, you know, his disciples and and the women and so forth, they didn't understand the scriptures. You know, last week I took you to some passages that dealt with or predicted the resurrection, because in verse four, it said that the resurrection on the third day was according to the Scriptures that is Old Testament Scriptures prophesied the resurrection of the Messiah on the third day. I took you to Psalm 16 to show you that I took you to Matthew 1240 because Jesus refers to Jonah and the sign of the prophet Jonah that he would be three days three nights in the tomb which Jewish thought any part of a day is a day. So it's Friday to Sunday. No problem. But they did not understand the Scriptures. So when they saw him, they didn't recognize it. Most people say, well, see, Jesus looks so different as resurrection body. They didn't know who he was. That's baloney. That's not even theology. That's just making stuff up. The real issue, as you will see, is that they did not believe the scriptures and therefore they were not permitted to see. When you don't believe the Scriptures, when I don't believe the Scriptures, we are not permitted to advance. We are not permitted to see what God will do and can do and shall do. See, seeing is not believing. That's just the culture. That's a cultural myth. Believing is the way which God has scheduled for man to be able to see. And if you won't believe until you see, well, you'll never, ever believe you never ever see anything properly. You will be blinded. just like the people couldn't see him, even though he's standing right in front of their face. See, God will not allow man to live any other way than by faith. He's designed it that way from the very beginning. There's but one man from one way for man to live, and that is by faith. Now, let's look at the burial, first of all, the first evidence that we see. Verse four says, and that he was buried. Now, the tomb that he was buried in was that of a rich man, right? named Joseph of Arimathea. He was a secret believer. He was a member of the highest organization among the Jews. That was the Sanhedrin. And there are two tombs that are the leading contenders, people say, for the actual tomb that Jesus was buried in. The most popular tomb was discovered in 325 B.C. in one of the earliest formal archaeological excavations. It's just outside the walls of Jerusalem, and there was a church built over this site. Now, Western Christians refer to this site or this church as the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. And the Eastern Christians, they refer to it as the Church of the Resurrection, which we like that name better. Now, the church was built in the fourth century A.D. to cover this tomb. So to go see this tomb, you would have to go into a church. And that was a common thing that you may not, why would they build a church over the tomb? But of course, they did that in the ancient world in order to protect the sacred sites from, you know, the weather and erosion patterns and people coming up and destroying them and so forth. So if you go to Israel to see certain sites, you'll enter a lot of churches or other structures that cover the actual thing that you are interested in saying. I don't like that, but you may not like it, but that's what they've done. And a lot of times it's so overly ornate. For example, this is in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. And after you go in there and there's all this ornate things hanging everywhere, you're wondering you know what was out there to see whether to see this church or out with other to the point of interest. But that's the way it is. And there probably wouldn't be anything there to visit unless they had covered it with the church anyway. But they don't have to hang all this stuff up. But that's their stuff. Now the Church of the Holy Sepulchre as you see here is claimed to be the site of both Christ's crucifixion and Christ's burial. The argument is that well the scriptures say that The crucifixion spot had to be outside the city walls. The burial spot had to be outside the city walls. The cross and the tomb had to be nearer to one another. There had to be a quarry a rock quarry nearby. There had to be a garden nearby. There had to be other tombs in the near vicinity. So this spot meets all those requirements and people said well this must be it. And so they constructed a path. leading to it known as the Via Dolorosa on the basis of where they thought the final portions of the trial and beating were held. And that's called the Way of the Cross. Now many people walk that today. Now where you will end up if you take that path is you'll end up in this church, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. And this is the doorway into the church which is actually owned by Islam, Muslims actually, it's very interesting. But anyway, this church is usually very packed, you know, with visitors and so forth. And when you go in, I think, I believe you turn to the right and there are some steps there and you'll walk up these steps onto like a second story. And then when you come into the room, you'll see that there is a glass box that's covering this rock. And that is said to be Golgotha, the location of Christ's crucifixion alongside the two thieves. And then you come down to the ground level again. And you'll walk over toward what they say is the tomb, the burial site. And it's inside a little structure. So this is a structure inside the church. And you have a little priest there that, you know, monitors who goes in and how long they get to stay and so forth. And so you can go in and you can spend a few moments inside. And when you get inside, there'll be like this little napkin hanging there with a picture on it that says Christos Aneste, Christ is risen. and indeed he is, but but this kind of experience is very abstract for people because of the fact you're inside this church and there's all this ornamentation and it's all very disturbing in a way. Now the other. There are many other people who since the eighteen hundred have argued that the church of the Holy Sepulcher is not the site where he was buried, but it's actually a place called the garden tomb. of the garden. They say also is outside the city walls. It was close to a place and elevated place a rock. They call Golgotha. It was also near a cistern and a garden and there was a quarry there and there were other things around it. So it also means all the scriptural requirements and this was discovered by British General Charles Gordon in the eighteen seventy. And Gordon, he went and spent a lot of time in Jerusalem, and he studied the contours of the city of Jerusalem, and he noticed this strange rock that looked like a skull. And so he said, well, that must be what the New Testament calls the place of the skull. And he added many other interesting arguments, and you can read all about it. in a very interesting book written by Peter Walker that's called The Weekend That Changed the World. At least it's a very interesting read and I would highly recommend it, The Weekend That Changed the World by Peter Walker. Now if you go to the Garden Tomb, you will first take a look at this hill that looks like a skull, which you can see here. Hopefully your imagination isn't that far gone. it. Of course, it's eroded some since Charles Gordon thought maybe it was even clear in his day. But I think you can see what he was looking at. And then you can go over and look at the actual garden tomb, which is not far away at all. By the way, on top of this, what do you think the Muslims put up there? They put a cemetery on top of it. OK, anyway, it's just more little things. But You can go over to a much more pleasant area kind of by where they say the tomb is, which they called the Garden Tomb. And this is a very beautiful area. Of course, there is a garden there today, a cistern nearby to water the garden and so forth. You can see that part of the wall there fell down right here, so they kind of repaired it and that's why that rock looks new, because it is new. And then when you go in that little door there, there's a little window you see, but you'd go in the door. And when you go in that door to your right, there are some bars. You can't really see the bars because I stuck my camera through the bars. Right. But this is the loculus that they say that Christ would have been buried in because the other one on the opposite side here to the right, which you can't see is incomplete. But this one is complete, and the head would have been on the left end down here, and the feet toward the right end. And this would have been where John and Peter, they peered in, you know, and so forth, and found the linens and the napkins sitting off to the side, all neatly folded and so forth. So, outside, back again outside, you can see there's a slot that runs right in front of it, along the ground. And on the other side of that, of course, it's just a low spot. And this is where the stone rolled. It was like a slot for the stone to roll through. And so the stones weren't like big round stones. They were more like a pancake, OK? And they would roll across and be placed in front to seal the entry to the tomb. And then they could be moved away with enough men. Now, you can't get much of an idea here. So here's another tomb that's in Jerusalem. that gives you a better idea. So you can see that the door entryway here is here in the center and then you can see the stone that would be rolled in front of that door to seal it. And of course when you look at it this way you say oh I see why it would be so difficult to move the stone because to move it you'd have to be pressing on the stone from the front to the side. It's a very awkward position. and it would require several people to do so. So this way the tombs were quite secure and could be kept closed. Now I don't know if the tomb which he was buried in was either at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher or the Garden Tomb. They both argue well it meets all the requirements of the text but you know I mean there are other tombs that have been put forth to be the one that Christ was buried in. When we were there I think in 2008 I tried to find a along with some of our church members we tried to walk around and get access to another team that was called condors team and we couldn't get to that but in any case. There are other contenders and if you go you know most the Roman Catholics will enjoy going to the church of the Holy Sepulchre because it's deeply embedded in their tradition that this is the site. But most Protestants enjoy going to the garden to him because it's just it's just more of a beautiful place to be in things more natural setting. But nobody knows for sure exactly what to. But what we do know is what verse four tells us that Christ was buried and therefore outside the city walls near a quarry and a garden along the main road where the crucifixion took place as a warning from Rome to everybody you don't violate our authority. Somewhere along one of those roads the main roads there was a tomb near the crucifixion site that for three days housed the body. of the Lord Jesus. Now this is where things get interesting because his body was in the tomb for three days. But Jesus Christ was not in the tomb for three days because remember what he said on the cross to the thief who believed. He said today you will be with me in paradise and paradise was not in the tomb. OK. So where was Christ after he died. Well that very day he was in paradise. His body was in the tomb, but he was not. He was in paradise. And his body remained in the tomb for part of Friday, the remaining part of Friday, which probably wasn't very long, because their day ends Friday evening at sunset. And so Saturday, the Sabbath, would begin Saturday at dusk. So his body was then in the tomb all day Saturday all Sabbath and then part of Sunday which began actually Saturday night at six or so. In Jewish thought any part of the day is considered a full day. And so what I'm giving you is standard fair crucifixion resurrection theology. That is he was crucified on a Friday and he was raised on a Sunday. OK so no problem. But if he's in heaven with If he's not in the tomb, where is he? Well, we said he's in paradise. He's with his father in paradise, in heaven. And if he is, well, what form is he there in? What does it mean, really, to kind of say that he was with the Father and Spirit only? Now, I think that he was given some kind of a temporary body until the resurrection, and I'm thinking of the transfiguration before the resurrection, when you had Moses and had a larger and they appeared with Jesus and they all appeared to be in some kind of a body. In fact everybody knew who they were. Somehow they didn't have name tags on that on Moses and I'm Elijah. But everybody seemed to know who they were and yet they never met them before. That's interesting. Very interesting thought. I don't know maybe when we get in the resurrection bodies or something like that. or even before that when we go and we have some maybe we have some kind of temporary body and you see other people and you just know. Never met him in your whole life. But maybe you'll know. I don't know. They knew Moses and Elijah. We don't really know. But we know that Moses and Elijah were not raised at this point. At the Transfiguration because the resurrection of Jews doesn't occur until the second coming of Jesus Christ. So right now there are no Jews other than one who has ever been raised. Because Jesus Christ is the first race from the dead. He's the only one who ever has. Well, there's possibly some guys in Matthew 27 52 who were raised. These would have been Jewish believers. They could be raised. OK. And I challenge you to look at that text. I think that they are. But they were raised after Christ's resurrection. So there may be what we call a first fruits of Jewish believers who were raised. And the first fruits always means that there's more to follow. And so that would have been evidence Matthew twenty seven fifty two that there's more to come more resurrections and more believing Jews. OK. But Christ is the first resurrected from the dead. So before the resurrection he's in some form he's gone to paradise. He met the thief on the cross in paradise before he got his resurrection body. He may have gone and preached to the spirits in prison. Peter talks about some of the demons that committed an atrocious act in the time of the flood. and he may have made some kind of an announcement to them that he was victorious and so forth at the cross and he'd overcome death. But in this time he's in some kind of a temporary body. And so this goes on for three days while his body is still in the tomb. Now everyone that was there knew that his body was in the tomb. They saw the tomb. They saw how his body was laid in the tomb because people watched and watched him be laid in the tomb. but then it turned out on the third day. The heavy stone was had been removed. His body was not in the tomb. Now we're talking about the eleven. Appearances. The eleven appearances of the Lord Jesus Christ and his resurrection body and I'm going to walk you through all of them. You can break them as you see in the three categories of the three columns here came the first column is The five appearances that occurred on the day of the resurrection. Then you had five more appearances that occurred during the 40 days after. And then you had one isolated appearance much later on. And we want to look at all of these. OK. Now Paul doesn't mention all of these in First Corinthians 15. We're well aware of that. He mentioned six of them. So he doesn't mention all but he does list them in the proper order. OK. So I have them here listed one through eleven in the order in which they occurred and Paul is accurate on his order. So first to Mary Magdalene second to some other women on the way third to the two men. Well actually to Peter but the two men on the road to Emmaus would be the fourth and then fifth to the twelve that all occurred on the day of the resurrection that Sunday before six p.m. that night. Eight days later, he appeared sixth appearance to the disciples where Thomas was present this time around, and then the seventh was to seven disciples at the Lake of Galilee. The eighth was the appearance to more than 500 brethren, and then the ninth was to James, the half-brother of Jesus, who did not believe until after the resurrection, so he wasn't a believer at the time, and tenth to the apostles at the Final Ascension. So those are the five resurrection appearances during the forty days and then eleven the isolated appearance Paul on the road to Damascus which occurred much later. Now I'm just going to walk you through. We can't go to all the passages and show harmony. A.T. Robinson's done good work on that. You can study a harmony of the Gospels if you want harmony of these appearances and so forth. But I want to go through just kind of walk you through the day of the resurrection and what happened forty days after and finally what happened on the Damascus Road to Paul and then while we go along we'll learn some lessons. OK. Now after the normal Sabbath. So he's crucified on Friday. Then the normal Sabbath Saturday. After that, the women went that night to buy the spices. Okay, because you know, that's the way you would, you would visit a tomb and you would want it to smell fragrant, you would not want it to smell like a decaying body. So that's why they did this type of thing. And early the next morning, which was the third day, the women came to the tomb. And when they got there, we know that the stone was rolled away. And when they went in, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. Now it says that they were perplexed about this, and this is where you start to see doubt enter into the lives of his followers. So it's not just doubting Thomas, you know, poor Thomas, he gets a bad rap, but look, hardly anyone believed. Okay. Now what the women saw, there were these two angels that appeared in the tomb and they told them that the Christ had risen and he reminded them You know, Jesus taught that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men. He must be crucified and raised on the third day. So then they leave the tomb and they go to report these things to the twelve. Now, as they told the twelve about the tomb and what the angels had told them, were the twelve believing what these women had to say? No. It says that these words seem to them as nonsense. And they did not believe them. Now, that's when Peter got up and he ran, he bolted to the tomb and John got up after him and he ran to and they ran together for a while, but John got there first because he was faster than Peter, younger too. And when he got there, when John got there first, he stooped and he looked in. And he saw the linen wrappings, but he did not go in to the tomb. Then Simon Peter arrived, and he went barging in, as always, right in the middle of it. And he saw the linen wrappings, and he saw the face cloth wrapped up all neat and nice and placed by itself, which this is put in the Gospels to show you that the body of Christ was not stolen because thieves don't take the time to roll up little cloths and set them neatly aside. Then John came. and the text says that when he went in to the thing he believed. It's the first report that anyone believed. And pretty much the last one. And the thing to learn is that you is when we ask the question why did John Billy nobody else really wanted John. The answer is because he understood the scriptures. Very interesting, his closest followers did not understand the scriptures. See, people say, well, the resurrection is what is supposed to convince us to believe. Seeing is believing. That's nonsense. I mean, that's that's completely wrong. Believing is what enables us to see. It's what enabled John to understand exactly that Jesus Christ was in a resurrection body at that moment. And that's why he was not there. So this principle goes back to there was a rich guy in the Gospels. and he was in Sheol, and he was burning, and he said to Abraham, you know, it's very hot, you know, I'd like to dip my finger in some cold water or something like that to cool off. And sorry, you know, see, there's only one opportunity in this life, by the way, to get right with God. Once you've passed from this life, there's no more opportunity to believe it's not like a second chances thing. It's in this life, that is your chance and all the second chances are used up in this life. Well, then the man says, well, go and Go to send Lazarus and Lazarus to my father's house, so that he may warn my five brothers, so they won't come to this place of torment. But Abraham said what they have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them. The word of God, let them hear the word of God. But he said, No, Father Abraham. But if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent. But he said to him, If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded, even if someone rises from the dead. Now that the point of that story is that the scriptures. Are the authority, and if we believe the scriptures, then we can interpret the evidence correctly. But if we don't accept the scriptures on their own authority on God's authority, then we won't be persuaded, even if somebody rises from the dead right in front of our eyes. So seeing is not believing. Believing is what gives you the ability to see the world properly, the way that God has created it and interpreted it. Now, the Twelve, they were hearing what these ladies said, but they were not believing. That's nonsense. It's crazy ladies talking about that Jesus is risen. Nonsense. They had heard the Old Testament scriptures, right? Surely. They heard Christ expound the scriptures. They heard Christ predict his own death and resurrection. Peter even said, May it never be. Remember. And yet, when women came telling him that, hey, the telling him the tomb is empty, those same disciples who'd heard the word of God, they did not believe the scriptures. John believed. He understood when he looked in the tomb, boom, immediately he knew that Jesus had risen from the dead. Not really that big of a surprise for him as a surprise for everybody else, because the others didn't really believe the scriptures. But there's Peter. He's standing, looking into the tomb. The others followed too. OK, when they all got to the tomb, Jesus wasn't there. So what are we going to do? Hang out in the garden all day? So they left, you know. But Mary Magdalene, she stayed behind. She was the only one left and she was crying. And then she turned around and now we have the very first appearance. She saw Jesus. She looked him square in the eyes, but she did not recognize him. And she said to him, you know, where is my Lord? You know, they've laid him here, but they they've taken his body away. And she thought he was the gardener. And people say, see, she didn't recognize him because the resurrection body is so different than the present body. That's wrong. There's nothing to do with that. She didn't recognize him because she wasn't believing the scriptures. If she had been believing the scriptures, she wouldn't have said, where did they move his body to? They must have laid it somewhere else. She would have said, Christ is risen, risen indeed, just as he had said, just as the scriptures had said, just as the prophets had spoken. She would have been like John and she would have believed, walked away going, knowing that he was risen somewhere. But she said, They must have moved his body. So here he is standing directly in front of her face. And then the Lord was very gracious and he revealed himself to her. She opened. He opened her eyes and Mary. Hello. And this is the first appearance. Then he tells her something very interesting, which is often kind of looked over in the text. He says, Do not touch me or it could be in the Greek. Do not cling to me. A commentator's debate, which is the proper reading. Is he saying do not cling to me like don't restrain me. I have something I need to do now and you're clinging to me you're holding me back from doing what I need to do. Or is he saying don't touch me like hands off right now. Because he goes on to say I have to ascend to my father and your father to my God and your God. And. This would imply that he has to, in his resurrection body, go and ascend to heaven and make, let's say, be presented before the Father in his resurrection body for the first time in heaven. And now Lewis Sperry Chaffer, he held that there were actually two ascensions of the Lord Jesus Christ. We usually just think of the one ascension, you know, the one that occurred 40 days after the resurrection. He was on the Mount of Olives. teaching them concerning the kingdom and up he goes and disappears into the clouds. And we say that's the ascension. It is an ascension. But Schaefer pointed out that this appearance to Mary Magdalene where he said do not touch me. For I ascend to the father. And Schaefer says this shows you that there are at least two ascensions maybe more. See the ascension on the day of the resurrection where he made a presentation in heaven before the father. And then he returned to Earth and made other appearances that very day, as we can see, for others, and many others, until his final ascension after the 40 days had been completed from the Mount of Olives. Chaffer said it's even possible during these 40 days for them to have been multiple ascensions back and forth from Earth to heaven. And we don't really know. What we do know is what is on this chart. that there are 10 appearances that are cited in the New Testament. And only 10 in those 40 days. So it sounds like he was not with them all the time. But that he was departing. Perhaps the heaven and then returning to make appearances on Earth. In any case, I give that to you some food for thought. In any case, he did first appear to Mary Magdalene And he told her not to touch him or cling to him, whichever it is, but to go and tell the disciples that he would go before them and meet them in Galilee. Then he disappeared. OK, maybe going back to his father in heaven or apparently at that time. That's what it sounds like. Then appearance to as she goes to report to the disciples, she caught back up with some of the other women who are on their way back. And she the Lord Jesus Christ made an appearance to to all these women. and told them basically the same thing, I'll meet the disciples in the Galilee. Third, the same day you have the fascinating Luke 24 passage, where there are two men on the road to Emmaus, which is not far from Jerusalem. And then suddenly there's this third man walking along the road with them. And on this occasion, it reports that he did appear to them in a different form. It states that. It says he came in a different morphe, a different bodily appearance. He looked different. And these two men were walking along the road. They were talking about what had happened in Jerusalem. And Jesus said to them, you know, what are you talking about? And they said, well, where have you been? You know, haven't you heard what happened in Jerusalem? I mean, everybody knew this stuff. See, this this is put in there to show you that the resurrection, the crucifixion didn't occur in a corner somewhere. Everybody knew. It was front page news. And so they explained what had happened to him. to Christ, and they said he was delivered up and crucified at the hands of the Romans, and now it's the third day. And there was these women, they say, that went to the tomb, and they reported that it was empty, and the disciples went to the tomb, but they didn't see him. And we were hoping that he was the one to redeem Israel. And Jesus then, at that point, he rebukes them. He rebukes many people during this time period, his closest followers, and he said, oh, foolish men, slow of heart to believe. What? To believe all that the prophets have written. He says, is not the Christ to suffer and enter into glory? Well, isn't this a subject of the Old Testament, he says, everybody should have known this. And beginning with Moses and the prophets, he exegeted himself from the scriptures. Jesus Christ was a master exegete of the word of God. And they went into the village and they broke bread with him, and in the breaking of the bread, he did what? He opened their eyes so they could see him. And then they knew him and he disappeared. Why did the Lord Jesus Christ go to the Old Testament and expound himself from Moses and the prophets? Well, faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. He is trying desperately to get these people to believe all that had been written concerning him. And when they were believing it, then their eyes were open and they recognized who he was. And at that point he disappeared. Now the resurrection body. At least of Christ does some very interesting things. We don't know if those things are the abilities that come with every resurrection body or in the case of Christ they are miracles of God related in some way to his deity. But certainly Christ did appear and disappear. and the two men said wasn't our heart burning within us as we heard him open up the Scriptures. And so they departed that very hour and they went straight to Jerusalem and reported these things to the twelve and they also reported. We find the report that he had appeared to Peter as well sometime on that day. And so apparently the Lord Jesus told him that he had appeared to Peter. The fifth appearance is as they were all gathered in the room in Jerusalem, Thomas being absent and they were afraid and they saw him and they got they were terrified. They weren't expecting him. You know what is wrong with these people? Why weren't they expecting him? If the Scriptures taught in the Old Testament that the Messiah would be crucified and that he would rise in the third day and here it is the third day, why wouldn't they be expecting him? If I told you I will see you on Wednesday, would you be shocked and terrified when I walked in the room? No, that's what you expect, but they were not believing what they were to expect. See, they didn't understand the Scriptures. And so, he appears in the room. Thomas not there. They were afraid. They didn't believe it. He said, See my hands and my feet, that it is I. Handle me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as I have. And for joy, it says they still could not believe. In other words, your emotions can get in the way of belief, by the way. And so he asked for something to eat. And he gave he they gave him a piece of fish and he ate it for them. You know, that's to show that he's not just a spirit, but that he's a true human body. Can the resurrection body eat? It can eat. Does it have to eat? I don't know. I don't know anything about that. The point is, Jesus is doing everything he can to convince them to believe, to believe the scriptures that taught the resurrection so they can see him so they can understand. and those make up the five resurrection appearances on the day of the resurrection. Now there were no more appearances we know of until at least the eighth day or a week later on Sunday. So the next Sunday they were all gathered in a room and the door is the text of the doors were what shut. I mean he didn't come in one and we have the sixth appearance. He appears in the midst of the room. And Thomas was there this time. And he said, Thomas, reach your finger here and see my hands and touch my side and see that it is I. See, most people don't really understand what the Thomas episode is all about. The Thomas episode is about the fact that the resurrection body of Jesus was the same body that was on the cross. That is what that account is all about. A lot of people want to take the resurrection body and make it something totally disconnected from the present bodies that we have. Nonsense. The whole point is that it is the same body that was on the cross. It was the same body that was in the manger. That's the one that Thomas was touching and Thomas was seen. And Jesus said, Because you have seen, you have believed, but blessed is he who does not see and believes. That is the ones who believe on the basis of the Scripture God's authority in the word. Then the seventh appearance and we have the parents on the shore of the Lake of Galilee seven of the disciples and you know the story they were fishing and they weren't catching anything and Jesus appeared on the shore and he told they couldn't identify him at the time but he told him to cast their nets on the other side and when they had done that. There was such a load of fish, they could not pull it into the boat. And when Peter recognized who he was, he dove into the water and swam ahead. They broke bread and they ate on the shores of Galilee, the seventh appearance. Then the eighth appearance, one of the most strange ones, and that is when he appeared, 1 Corinthians 15 is the only text that records it, appeared to more than 500 of the brethren At one time. Most people assume that means at one place. That's not what it says. Does it. Says at one time. Now possibly in your mind you're thinking. Oh that would solve a very difficult problem I've always wondered about the New Testament and that is how at the second coming every eye can see him. On the whole earth. The earth is round, last time we checked. And how can every eye on earth see Jesus Christ coming at the second advent? Well, maybe part of the solution is here. I mean, because maybe he appeared to more than 500 at one time, but the 500 people were at different places at that time. It doesn't say they were at the same place. Maybe they were. I'm not discounting it. I'm just saying maybe they weren't. And we don't know how he would have done this, but that's possible that he could have done this because he is God. So we don't really know if this ability to appear to others in different places all at the same time is a function of the resurrection body or if it's a function of Jesus Christ deity, but he may very well have appeared to more than 500 brethren simultaneously while those brethren were in different locations. more food for thought. Then we have the ninth appearance. I mean isn't the Lord great. I mean he's marvelous. He's amazing. And the resurrection body is going to be really cool. I don't know why anybody wants to stay around these bodies. I'm sure most of you don't. Can't wait to get the new upgraded model. Then we have. The ninth appearance to James half brother. Of the Lord Jesus. He wasn't he was not a believer by the way before the resurrection. You know, he lived with the Lord Jesus Christ. They grew up together in the same house, ate at the same table, slept in the same room. And here's a guy who knew that his brother claimed to be the Messiah, the chosen one of God, who would redeem the house of Israel. And he didn't believe it. Neither did his brothers and sisters, by the way. And you have to know that Jesus Christ put on a perfect witness. I mean, the guy never failed. He was the perfect testimony. And yet, were they believing? No, they didn't believe. See, don't get too upset. You know, sometimes you feel, well, I've failed. You know, some of my family members, you know, they're not believers. And I put on the best witness I can, you know, and it's just not good enough. No, Jesus Christ was the best witness there ever was. And his own brothers and sisters were not believing in him. Don't get down, OK? So he appears to his half-brother James. James does come to become a believer. He becomes the elder at the church in Jerusalem. Finally, he appears to his apostles on the last day, the fortieth day, the day of his ascension from the Mount of Olives. And this is in Acts one. And he departed as they watched him go up and he disappeared into the clouds and he went through the heavenlies, Hebrew says, passing through all the angelic realm and took his seat high above all of them at the right hand of the father on high. So that he now holds the high ground. If you know anything about military, you know anything about strategy, you know that you want to have the high ground. And Jesus Christ holds the high ground right now. And he's sitting on that high ground, prepared to make his military assault on earth at the second coming of Jesus Christ. You can read about it in Isaiah 66. You can read about it, or 63, excuse me. You can read about it in Revelation 19. And he's a one-man army. Now, the last appearance, the 11th and the final appearance was much later, several years later to Paul on the Damascus Road. But the main point of all these appearances that I wanted to draw out was that most of them, when they saw him, they still did not believe it was him. Seeing is not necessarily believing, but believing the scriptures is what allows you to see reality correctly. So if you're waiting for God to show you something before you believe, you may be waiting forever. But if you believe the scriptures now, you're going to see things you never dreamed of. Now, the scriptures are a completely accurate record of truth. They are authoritative. They explain to you what reality is and how to interpret what you see in the right way. And that's why Jesus said, Blessed are those who have not seen and yet do what? Believe. Now that's all of us here. You and I, we all believed on the basis of the authority of scripture that Christ is risen because not one of us ever saw the risen Lord Jesus Christ. He didn't appear to us. So what you read in the scriptures, which is the voice of God, is more certain than anything, ability, capacity that you have in and of yourselves to interpret reality correctly. But if you reject the scriptures, just like his closest disciples did, who he said, Why are you so slow to believe all the scriptures that said what they said concerning me? And therefore, they couldn't believe the resurrection. See, the scriptures said they did not understand the scriptures. They did not understand that he must rise again from the dead. And therefore, they couldn't recognize him. So when we come to these six appearances that are listed in First Corinthians 15, we see that he did not, of course, include all the appearances. But the ones he did include, you can see, are in the proper order. You see the appearance in verse 5 to Cephas, who's Peter, which was his third appearance on the day of the resurrection. Then also in verse 5, you see the appearance to the 12. It was the fifth appearance on the day of the resurrection. Thomas was absent on that occasion. Judas was too, so really all the 12 weren't there, but the 12 is just a technical expression. The appearance in verse 6 to more than 500 of the brethren at one time was the 8th appearance. It was during the 40 days after. And by the way, what does verse 6 also say about that? Many of whom are still living, although some have fallen asleep. See, in other words, if we had lived when this epistle was written in 56 A.D., we could have gone to probably more than 300 eyewitnesses and we could have investigated, done our own personal investigation. What did you see? Explain to me what you saw. I mean, if they all saw him at different places, but all at the same time, wouldn't this be a neat investigative report? In verse seven, we have the appearance to James, the half brother of Jesus. It was the ninth appearance during the and it was during the forty days. And then to all the apostles, the tenth appearance is listed in First Corinthians, which is the day of his ascension from the Mount of Olives. And then we have verse eight. Last of all, Paul says, as to one untimely born, he appeared to me also. That's the eleventh. And that is the last appearance of all which was the Paul on the Damascus Road. So the sequence of the appearances is is maintained although not all the appearances are mentioned. Now the appearance to Paul here in verse 8 Paul says last of all to me. OK. By the way that's because you know by the way Jesus Christ has never appeared to anybody since Paul. No one in the history of the world has seen the resurrected Christ since Paul the Apostle song. And this is enough to say that there are no apostles since Jesus Christ must appear to someone for them to be an apostle. First Corinthians 9 1. OK. And there's no such thing as apostolic succession. You know where these keys got passed on from the apostles to these other people. The authority of the apostles could not be transferred to anybody else. It had to be given and could be given only by the risen Christ. Therefore what that means is that the popes of Rome are not in some kind of an unbroken chain of succession. Looking back to Peter, the chain was broken with Paul. Or, let's say, with John, since John was the last apostle to die, more than likely. But Paul was the last one that he appeared to. So Paul says, and last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared to me also. Now, the expression as to one untimely born was used by Aristotle to refer to like a miscarriage or an abortion. In other words, the baby was born too early to survive. It was the wrong time for the baby to be born. Now, the point, of course, is not to say that Jesus appeared to Paul at the wrong time. It's just to say that he appeared to Paul at a strange time. See, he appeared to Paul much later than anybody else. I mean, it was years later. His appearance was not grouped with all the others. And so he appeared to him as one untimely born at a strange time. He then says, I'm the least of the apostles. I'm not fit to be called an apostle. because I persecuted the Church of God. When we study the book of Acts and when we study Galatians one we found that Paul basically wrote the handbook on how to persecute the Church of God. He was an avid student of Judaism. He was a student of the great rabbi named Gamaliel in Jewish history. He was at the very top of his class a brilliant brilliant man. He in Acts chapter six we believe debated in the synagogue One of the synagogues in Jerusalem with Stephen, and it sounds like Stephen beat his socks off. Because Stephen was a powerful exegete of the Scriptures, and it really made Paul mad. See, Paul held to Judaism, and Judaism had reinterpreted all the Old Testament Scriptures into a system which did not correspond to the Old Testament Scriptures. It was a misinterpretation. Many people do this, right? They will argue that, well, the Bible is saying this. But really, they have misinterpreted the scripture and they have a system over here and then they try to read their system back into the Bible. Well, that's what Judaism had done. Judaism was not believing and could not account for all the Old Testament scriptures. This is why Jesus keeps coming to them and he keeps saying to them, well, what does it mean where it says where David says the Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand. What does that mean, guys? And their system could not absorb and understand that scripture. His point was, your system is wrong. You're not believing the scriptures. The scriptures say this. How do you account for it? Now, that's Paul. He was the same way. But Stephen was understanding the scriptures, and he just blew his socks off in the halls of debate. And Paul is the type of guy that if he wasn't first in the class, well, he'd just kill you so he could be. And he did. He had Stephen executed. Remember, Act 7 is the longest account. It gives a long, long sermon of Stephen and how angry it made the Ivy League lawyers of Israel and how they clenched their teeth and could not even restrain themselves. These elite people in the culture who were so well educated couldn't control their emotions and they destroyed him illegally. They murdered him. Those who were supposed to keep the law became the very violators of it. But what did the Holy Spirit use this to do? To blow the whole church out of Jerusalem. The text says that Paul ravaged the church and the believers in Jerusalem scattered out. And now you have the gospel going to other places than just Jerusalem, don't you? The marvelous sovereign hand of God. He works all things together for the good. Even the murder of Stephen, while itself is evil, worked out for the good, for the salvation of many others. In Acts 9, he is now, Paul is now going out to destroy those believers who scattered out of Jerusalem, who are taking the gospel to other people. And when he's on the road to Damascus, still breathing threats, even murder against Christians, he became a Christian himself when the Lord appeared to him. The Lord Jesus Christ took the greatest antagonist of the church and turned him into the greatest apostle of the church. And he did it in one fell swoop, one little occasion in Acts chapter nine. And so Paul says, however, that he did not consider himself fit to be an apostle and the least of the apostles because he persecuted the church of God. He is an apostle nonetheless, but verse 10, but by the grace of God, I am what I am. And his grace toward me did not prove vain, but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me. Now, there are two phases here of God's grace. The first phase of God's grace is what made Paul a Christian, where he says at the beginning of the verse, but by the grace of God, I am what I am. Obviously, Paul was not going to Damascus looking for Jesus. But Jesus came looking for him on that road. And when God Jesus Christ presented himself in his claims and his Messiah ship and all of this Paul believed and he was saved on that road that's by the grace of God he was justified on the road to Damascus when he believed the message and second God's grace is what enabled Paul to live the Christian life. Where Paul says in the rest of the verse and his grace toward me did not prove vain but I labored even more than all of them yet not I but the grace of God labored with me. See, the grace of God refers to first the phase where you actually became a believer and you were justified positionally before God. But God's grace continues to enable you to labor in the Christian life to be victorious. That's phase two. And Paul, of course, received God's grace in both phases. Through it, he became a believer and through it, he became a courageous minister of the gospel. verse eleven. So then, whether then it was I or they other apostles. So we have preach. And so you believe. See what and what the apostles preached everywhere they went, they didn't get their personal testimony. Oh, what was me? You know, I was on drugs and crack cocaine. And, you know, I was a fornicator and not around. Jesus saved me. You're not trying to win other people to your salvation experience. You're trying to win people to the gospel message, which is what Jesus Christ did for you on the cross and what he did three days later when he rose out of the tomb. We are not trying to duplicate our response in other people's lives. We are trying to get them in contact with the one who paid for the sins of the world and who lives forevermore. That is the testimony they went out and which they took. And that is the message, he says, which you believed. The death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But today we looked at the two historic evidences of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The historic evidence of the death is the burial. And I showed you two tombs. People think that he may have been laid in because he was laid in a tomb. Whether these were the ones or not is not the point. The point is it happened in history. There is a tomb that his body was in for three days. The more important we looked at the evidences for his resurrection which are his many appearances you see here eleven of them five on the day of his resurrection five in the forty days following the resurrection and one after many years after the forty days to Paul there we therefore we have close and reliable historical evidences for believing the resurrection. The resurrection body of course that they saw is the same exact body that died on the cross. With some changes, of course, he appeared and disappeared. He went through walls. He possibly appeared to more than 500 brethren who may have been at different locations. And just so this explains how every I can see him at a second coming and that in verse 11 then concludes what we call the scriptural proof for the death and resurrection of Christ. And next time we will turn to the logical proof that Paul puts forth. So let's close with a word of prayer. Your gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, that you have done this great work in history, that it was not hidden and done in a corner. But that everyone knew around Jerusalem what had happened. And that you revealed yourself on 11 occasions clearly. To many, so that it is beyond. Beyond any kind of analysis that man can come along now two thousand years later and say it's illegitimate never happened you are the God of history and we are believing in what you have written and we ask therefore Lord that we be given eyes to see because you have promised for those who study and believe the scriptures more will be given we thank you Lord that you have opened our eyes to see the gospel and to be freed from the penalty of sin. We have now Lord that you'd open our eyes to see further spiritual truth that we may be safe from the power of sin in our lives and we look forward to the resurrection that it may come today this hour this time we have all these things in Jesus Christ precious name.