Chapter 20, the Gospel of John, Chapter 20. We're going to read the whole chapter. John, Chapter 20. His brother Robert comes to give a public reading of the Word of God. John, Chapter 20. The Word of God. And on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb, while it was still dark, and saw the stone already taken away from the tomb. And so she ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved and said to them, they have taken away the Lord out of the tomb and we do not know where they have laid him. Peter therefore went forth and the other disciple and they were going to the tomb and the two were running together and the other disciple ran ahead faster than Peter. and came to the tomb first. And stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Simon Peter, therefore, also came, following him, and entered the tomb. And he beheld the linen wrappings lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on his head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself. So the other disciple who had first come to the tomb entered then also, and he saw and believed. For as yet they did not understand the scripture that he must rise again from the dead. So the disciples went away again to their own homes. But Mary was standing outside the tomb weeping, and so as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb. And she beheld two angels in white sitting, one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been lying. And they said to her, Woman, why are you weeping? She said to them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him. When she said this, she turned around and beheld Jesus standing there and did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking? Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him and I will take him away. Jesus said to her, Mary, she turned and said to him in Hebrew, Rabboni, which means teacher. Jesus said to her, Stop clinging to me, for I have not yet ascended to the father, but go to my brethren and say to them, I ascend to my father and your father and my God and your God. Mary Magdalene came announcing to the disciples, I have seen the Lord and that he had said these things to her. Then therefore it was evening on that first day, on that day, the first day of the week. And when the doors were shut where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, peace be with you. And when he had said this, he showed them both his hands and his side. The disciples therefore rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus therefore said to them again, peace be with you as the father has sent me. I also send you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them. If you retain the sins of any, they have been retained. But Thomas, one of the 12, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore were saying to him, we have seen the Lord. But he said to them, unless I shall see in his hands the imprints of the nails and put my finger into the place of the nails and put my hand into his side, I will not believe. And after eight days again, his disciples were inside and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut and stood in their midst and said, Peace be with you. Then he said to Thomas, Reach here your finger and see my hands and reach here your hand and put it into my side and be not unbelieving, but believing. Thomas answered and said to him, My Lord and my God. Jesus said to him, Because you have seen me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see and yet believed. Many other signs, therefore, Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book. But these have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name. Amen. Oh God, truly there is life in no other but in your name. And we love you for that. We praise you. And oh God, would you breathe on us as your people, God. We want to be living souls. We want to love you more. We want to obey you from the heart. We want to see you in your glory, God. Help us, oh God, to do that. And oh Lord, help me to preach rightly this morning. Oh God, let me not preach error. and let these that you have gathered here today, those that are watching by means of the internet, and those who will watch at some later time through the internet, Lord, give them eyes to see and ears to hear and a heart to believe in Jesus Christ's most precious name we pray. Amen. You may be seated. to the glory of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And when the Lord saved me back in 1971, the arguments about the resurrection were more upfront and prominent, and they were much more intense than they are today. Back in the early 1970s, there was widespread consensus among believers and non-believers alike, especially here in America, that the literal resurrection of Jesus was the line of demarcation. And so every individual saw the need to take a stand about this fantastic truth. And so people either eagerly believed in the resurrection or they categorically rejected it just as eagerly. And if a person accepted the biblical narrative about the physical resurrection of Jesus from the dead, they also generally believed the rest of the fantastic truths that are found in the Bible. And those people proudly wore the label of Christian. and those people who rejected the resurrection as either scientifically impossible or as simply a circus trick of an ancient magician, then generally speaking, those people also relegated the rest of the Bible to being just myth and utter nonsense, and they were intentionally and proudly not a Christian. But a strange thing has happened over the last 52 years. Today that single question, that single debate, that one issue of did Jesus rise from the dead physically and literally is not nearly as prominent, not nearly as intense as it once was. Because at one level, people feel that the resurrection of a man from the dead 2,000 years ago, way across the ocean, really doesn't have an impact on their own personal lives. I mean, we have our technologically sophisticated cell phones, and we went to school, and we have a brain, and it all seems today to be a discussion that has little or no relevance to the average person. Because after all, different people believe in different things, and maybe it happened, and maybe it didn't. And if it did, and if it helps some people to believe that in order to get along in this life, then fine. But it really doesn't make much difference to me. It really doesn't affect me on my life all that much. And so many people today really think that they can call themselves a Christian and they can join a church. They can think they can be in good standing with God and either be unsure about the resurrection of Jesus or even outright rejected. And sadly, there is not much that many of those religious organizations would ever do to challenge those people about that, even though the Bible categorically teaches that if you do not believe in the resurrection, you are not saved. You see, in our modern American culture, where everything today is relative, objective, propositional, absolute divine truth is no longer important. Our culture has elevated personal opinion and how someone may feel about an issue to be as valuable as truth. And at the same time, we have lowered and devalued divine absolute truth to be nothing more important than personal opinion. It is an odd swap. So it is common today to hear people say, well, that's just your opinion, when presented with clear biblical truth that they either don't like or don't want to hear. And it is common today for people to honestly believe that what they believe and what they trust in and what they accept is truth, as long as they are sincere about it or agree with it, even if what they believe and trust in and hope in isn't even true or contradicts the absolute truth of Scripture. Many take the attitude that I may or may not call myself a Christian, and if the resurrection seems helpful to me, then I may believe in it, but if it doesn't, then I won't. But whether I do or I don't doesn't affect my life, and I can still be happy and prosperous, and I can still find love and comfort without believing in it. Far too many people today, sadly even in the church, think that believing in the resurrection is nothing but fluff. That it may be nice, but it has no effect on their relationship with God, and it doesn't change where they are going to spend eternity. But is that true? Does it matter, as far as our eternity is concerned, whether or not Jesus rose from the dead? And the answer to that question is what I want to explore today. Now behind those two different kinds of unbelief, the kind from 52 years ago and the kind from today, is a completely different set of assumptions. For example, back when I was first saved, the assumption among unbelievers then was that there was a body of fixed, closed, natural laws that make the world understandable and scientifically manageable. And those laws simply did not allow the truth claim that somebody had risen from the dead to be believed by intelligent and rational and thinking people. And that was a commonly held assumption back then that the modern world, with its scientific understanding of natural laws, does not allow for resurrections. So unbelief back then was often rooted in a kind of smug, intellectual self-righteousness disguised as scientific analysis, when in fact it was simply just blind, ignorant disbelief that came from arrogance. But today in 2023, that is not the most common working assumption that we face. Today the assumption is not that there are natural laws outside of me that forbid my acceptance of the resurrection of Jesus, but rather the assumption that we face today is that there is a personal law that is inside of me that says I don't have to accept anything in my life that I don't find personally helpful or personally relevant. Or you could state this modern assumption another way by saying that many people today actually believe that truth for me is not objective or propositional. It isn't divine and it's not absolute. Truth is simply whatever I find to be personally attractive and personally helpful. And with that new assumption in place, and with that new subjective and suppositional inner law in place, it really doesn't matter whether Jesus rose from the dead or not. Because the thinking is that whether he did or didn't is totally disconnected to the life of most people in the 21st century, and is therefore completely irrelevant. Their only issue is, do I care? Do I personally find that idea helpful? Do I feel that it helps me flourish as a human being? And if it seems like the resurrection of Jesus from the dead on the third day doesn't, then they will view the resurrection the same way they view UFOs and possible life in some distant galaxy or some special effects in a movie. They really don't need to bother with it. And their false pseudo-humility will also say, but of course, if this silly superstition helps somebody else, then by all means, that's just peachy keen, but don't you dare try to impose that nonsense on me. And that is increasingly becoming the attitude of more and more people here in America, especially those younger than 52. In fact, some of you sitting here today may actually think that way without even knowing that's the way you think. You have simply absorbed the carnal logic from the general culture, because that way of thinking is now woven into most television shows, most advertising, most movies, and is taught in most curricula from the public school. So what I'm attempting to do this morning is to confront this issue head on, and honestly examine how we as human beings sift through the new indoctrination that is coming at us every day from all of these various sources. And my hope is that when I put the resurrection of Jesus Christ before you today, not simply as a religious belief, but as a historical fact, that you will see just how important it really is. And that the resurrection is not something that might be helpful to some people, but something that is required if anyone hopes to spend eternity in heaven. And if I, by God's grace, am successful in this morning, then you will not so easily buy into the bombardment of pagan and humanistic and just flat-out wrong information concerning this issue. So this sermon is about what really matters to you, not just what your own heart says matters to you. It is about absolute truth and your relation to that truth. I'm going to look at our text from John 20 in a moment, but let me begin this discussion with a sermon that the Apostle Paul preached to the philosophy lovers on Mars Hill in Athens about 20 years after the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And this sermon was recorded for us by the same Dr. Luke that was moved on by God the Holy Spirit to write the gospel record that bears his name, as well as the diary of the first 30 years of the Christian church. So please turn to Acts 17, verses 30 through 34 with me. Now this sermon that Paul preached begins in verse 22, but I want you to read with me the conclusion of this sermon that begins down in verse 30. Here's what it says. Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because he has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom he has appointed having furnished proof to all men by raising him from the dead. Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer. But others said, we shall hear you again concerning this. So Paul went out of their midst. But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius, the Aragapite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them. So first of all, notice in verses 30 and 31, in great contrast to what many in the modern church teach, the Apostle Paul clearly says here that God does not ask anybody to repent. He does not request anyone to repent. He doesn't plead with anyone to repent. He doesn't beg for anyone to repent. We are the ones who ask and plead and beg and request. The Bible says that God Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth, the creator and owner of the universe, and all that is in it is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent. And the Greek word that was translated here into English as declaring means to order or to command. So you see there was a time when the world, that the world at large did not know God because God dealt exclusively with the Jew. And verse 30 says that God winked or he overlooked the times of ignorance. But now that Jesus has come, now that Jesus has lived a perfectly sinless life, now that Jesus has fulfilled the promise of the Messiah, now that Jesus has died on the cross, and now that Jesus has physically and literally risen from the dead, God is now dealing with peoples out of every nation, tribe, and language, and not primarily with the Jew. And because God is now dealing with the peoples of the world, he no longer overlooks the general ignorance of the world at large that they have toward God. And so God now declares, he commands, he demands, God expects, he requires that all people everywhere repent. God expects all men everywhere to categorically reject their sins, reject their paganism, reject their idolatries, reject their blasphemies, reject their lying, reject their stealing, reject their murder, reject their dishonoring of parents, reject their covetousness, reject their abandonment and neglect of the Lord's Day worship, reject their ungodly behavior, and turn from it all. And God expects and demands that all people everywhere love and serve the living God. Now look again at verse 31. Because he has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom he has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising him from the dead. God's Word tells us that God Almighty has fixed a day in which He will judge the entire world, both Jew and Gentile, in His righteous might by the one single man whom God has chosen and appointed, namely Jesus the Christ. And to give divine credibility to this fact, God Almighty raised Jesus Christ from the dead. So part of the reason we should look at the resurrection, it is a sign of judgment of the world. So we have to understand that the main purpose of the resurrection of Jesus is that by this event happening, the owner and creator of the universe has placed his own personal seal of approval on all that Jesus said and all that he did in his earthly ministry. So that is why God said this about Jesus in Matthew 3 and 17 when John baptized him, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Now, we just pass over this statement usually, but we must realize that this statement shows us the amazing exclusivity of the relationship between God the Father and God the Son. There has never been another relationship like this in the history of the universe. There never ever will be a relationship like this anywhere at any point in time with anybody. This is the most unique relationship of all, the relationship that God the Father has with God the Son. We have something close, but it's no cigar. We are the ones who are in Christ, and therefore we have a relationship with God the Father. But we are never reflecting back to God, when God looks at us, we are never reflecting back to God his own perfect characteristics and attributes. Jesus does. So the love that God has of his son is beyond our imagination. It makes a mother's love for her child look like nothing. It makes a man falling on a hand grenade to save his fellow look like nothing. It makes whatever example you want to give of love on this earth look like nothing. It's not even close, the love that the father has for his son. You can't even have words for it. It is so perfect, so beautiful, so strong, so powerful. For example, Jesus is God's beloved son, in the sense that God the Father loves God the Son more than he loves anything or anyone else. God loves many things and we should be thankful that he loves many people, but God loves Jesus with a love that is exclusive between him and his Son. And Jesus is well-pleasing to the Father in the sense that nobody else has ever pleased the Father like the Son. Jesus pleased God perfectly. And that means that all of the great heroes in Israel's past, like Abraham and Moses, and even King David, never pleased the Father like the Son has. So this is an exclusive love, an exclusive pleasing that no one else has ever known. So we are blessed with having God's love, and we are blessed with being able to please the Lord, but only as we are in the Lord Jesus. Because other than us being in union with Jesus, we do not please God. Because on our best day, we are sinners. And all of our efforts at pleasing God are filled with mistakes and fleshly limitations and failures. But because God has placed us in union with Jesus, we may hear God say to us one day, well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will make you put you in charge of many things, enter into the joy of your master. So God the Father has given all of mankind an unchangeable divine assurance that he's going to judge the entire unbelieving and sinful world by raising Jesus from the dead. Now look again at the first part of verse 32. When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer. They didn't believe in it anymore back then than they do today. God don't make people any different than he ever made them. Everybody's fallen. Everybody's lost at birth, actually before birth, at the moment of conception. We're all born as God-haters. We're all pots of clay. We got nothing to brag about. Amen. Here Dr. Luke tells us that at this point in the sermon Paul's listeners just cut him off and they mocked him because of the patently ridiculous claim that Jesus was physically raised from the dead. And that in itself is a very significant fact of history because it shows us the breathtaking spread of Christianity during the early years of the church did not happen among backwards, superstitious, and gullible people who didn't think, and who were not educated, and who were not cultured, and who didn't understand the science, and who just blindly believed and followed whatever was being taught, and people who thought miraculous resurrections were normal. But then notice carefully what Paul said at the end of verse 30. God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent. God calls the whole world to repent, even the Gentiles who had no knowledge of God at all, precisely because every human on earth has sinned against him. In other words, Paul is saying that regardless of our level of education, or our financial well-being, or our political clout, or the degree of our cultural experience, regardless of anything that science has discovered or thinks it has discovered, there is one single thing that is the great equalizer of all men, and that is that we are all sinners. And that is in spite of overwhelming evidence, we have not treasured or valued God above all things. And because of that, we are guilty of being de facto idolaters. I said this a million times, when we think of a sinner, we think of a mass murderer or a pedophile. But here's a sinner, a sweet, precious lady that keeps her yard cut, that loves her grandchildren, that gives to charity, but she loves her hobbies and doesn't love God. That woman is a sinner. and she'll burn in hell forever next to the child molesters and the mass murderers. Now that's a hard sell. And the sweeter you make the person seem, the harder the sell is, right? It's hard to convince people that woman's gonna go to hell. She's gonna burn in hell screaming in agony forever. He's saying, wow, that's an overreaction. The punishment fits the crime. And the reason people think that hell is either irrelevant or that it doesn't exist or that it's a gross overreaction is they do not understand who God is. They don't understand how holy God is. They don't get it. And so when we sin against God, it's really not that big a deal in their minds. But it is to God. Because what we're doing when we embrace something that we like, that we love, or let's just say money, okay? We buy into the lie that money will bring us safety, security, and happiness. And so we sin against God by pursuing money in a sinful way so we can have more of it so we can be safe, secure, and happy, okay? That's what's called being deceived. All right. Now, what we've told God in that effort is I love money more than I love you. I don't find safety in you. You don't make me feel secure. That does. You don't do enough for me like that does. That's what that means. And you can't insult God any more than that. A mass murderer doesn't insult God any more than that. And so the American acceptable sins that we deem to be acceptable are not acceptable with God. And so we as Christians must not only believe that hell exists, we must believe that hell is right. And I'll go even one step further with you. You must come to believe from the scriptures that God is glorified with hell. God gets glory by people burning in hell because that glorifies his justice. Now, we don't like God's justice because we're guilty. We like God's mercy. We're all about mercy. God's not just all about mercy. God's about mercy. Thank God. He's also about justice. Another word for justice is righteousness. Amen. And you get this from Romans, the good book that tells about salvation. You get this out of Romans. We're going to get it out of Romans. All right, here we go. And when our children were young, Ron and I took them to the Smoky Mountains. And as we were driving through the area, we came across a place that had trained pigs. And these pigs could come and sit at the table and eat like a human. They got a tuxedo they put on them. And we brought them. We paid good money for it, too. And they're all just giggling and laughing at this pig. And he's sitting at the table, and he's acting like he's a human. And it's funny, funny, funny, har, har, har. OK. Then the thing closed down, and we were leaving. And one of the helpers ran up to the boss, and he said, one of the pigs got out. And you look back at the back and there's the pig. He's just wallowing in the mud in his tuxedo. All right. You know why? Because he's a pig. That's right. So you can dress Sin up in a tuxedo. I really got a message out of that. You can dress sin up in a tuxedo and try to make it more acceptable to society, just like you can put a tuxedo on a pig and train it to sit at a table and eat with a fork and knife. But sooner or later, no matter how intelligent or sophisticated or cultured or wealthy you might be, who you really are, will manifest itself. And as time goes on, you will manifest your unsaved and sinful depravity and your fallen nature in some way. And so you will lust, or you will hate, or you will blaspheme, or in some other way you will sin against the Holy God. And you will do that no matter how nice the tuxedo looks, no matter how nice the tablecloth is, the pig will always revert back to what he really is, and he will go outside and he will wallow in the mud. And pigs act like that because underneath all the training they are pigs. And fallen and depraved human beings sin because underneath all of our tuxedos of education and wealth and culture and sophistication, we are sinners and rebels by nature. We were conceived in sin and we are wicked to our core. And so we are not sinners because of the various acts of rebellion and law breaking that we periodically engage in. No, no, no, no. We periodically engage in those acts because in the very DNA makeup of our fallen nature, we are wicked rebels. And so our problem is, look, you don't have to go any further than look at your own children. Just watch them. Do not, do not get those Oreos and take them into your bedroom. That's the only thing you're gonna do. The thing you're told not to do is the thing that becomes the goal, right? Why? It doesn't matter how rich you are. It doesn't matter what kind of house you live in. They will look you in the face and lie to your face, right? And we've got to be there for those young parents, because they fall apart. What did I do wrong? What did I do? I've taught them how to love God, and now they're lying. They're sinners. It's in them. If your child isn't lying to your face, you're blessed. But they're doing something else. Amen. And it's not because they're different than anybody else. They're the same as everybody else. Amen. So our problem is not necessarily what we do, but who we are. and who we are as a sinner. And the Apostle Paul said this in Ephesians 2 and 3. Among them, we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were, what? By nature, children of wrath. You weren't taught this. You didn't go to school to learn how to do this. It's by nature. You normally and naturally fall into sin. Everybody does. Huh? I've had, I've had mamas and grandmamas come to me. Mom, my son got in the wrong group. He got in the wrong. Your son is the leader of the group. He ain't in the wrong. He's where he wants to be. Amen. We do what we want to do. That's why we're culpable. Huh? Amen. Yet we cannot change our own nature. And there's nothing on earth we can use that has the ability to change who we are. And so you cannot educate your way out of who you are. There is no vaccine or medicine you can take that will change who you are. There's no technology or surgery or law or governmental decree that can alleviate the real problem of who you are. That's why Jesus said we must be born again. And so the modern Pied Pipers and modern motivational speakers who masquerade as preachers and teachers of the gospel, they're all wrong. You can't do something to make yourself to be a better you. You are fallen, and you need a savior who has the power to transform your nature and change who you are. And you say, well, brother, that's supernatural. Yeah, yeah. That's a miracle. Yeah. I'm all about miracles and supernatural stuff. Amen. You know why I am? Because the Bible is. And I'm biblical. Amen. I'm serving a supernatural, miraculous God. Yes, I am. And that means that all of the societal experiments engaged in over the last 150 years that say that in order to reduce crime and in order to make bad people to be good, we just need to give them more money, more opportunity, and more education. Yet all of those efforts have been an unmitigated disaster, precisely because we cannot fix our problem by altering our external environment. Our problem is who we are, not where we live. So we cannot spend our way out of sin. No amount of money can make a sinner to be clean. The best that money can do is to insulate you to some extent from the penalties and the repercussions of our sin and the public scorn of our sin. For example, a rich drunk may beat his children and fall on the floor, but he does it at home and nobody knows about it. That's rich. That's what wealth does for you. The poor drunk, he falls in the ditch on the side of the road and everybody knows about it. That's the difference between a rich drunk and a poor drunk. No amount of technological breakthroughs can eliminate sin. No amount of governmental exercise over our lives can eliminate sin. There isn't a pill you can take or surgery that you can have that medical science provides that will alter the human soul and make a sinner to be godly. No amount of so-called human free will or the implementations of things like self-control or discipline can remove sin from us. Our problem is our own nature, who we are. And for those familiar with church, you also can't praise your way out of sin either. You can't speak the creative word or bind the devil or plead the blood to remove yourself from God's wrath against your sin. The Bible is crystal clear about this, dear friends. We must repent our way out of sin. We must humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, embrace the insult of the reality of our sin, and freely admit that we are vile sinners who are hopelessly sold under sin, and people who cannot help but to sin, and a people who are in desperate need of a Savior in the miracle of the new birth. Amen. And if God would be so kind to grant us the desire and the ability to come to the place where we fully understand and agree that we deserve nothing more than the eternal wrath and damnation of a holy and righteous God for our sins. But if God would give us the gift of saving faith, then we would eagerly hate our sin, and we would quickly repent, and we would trust in Jesus, and we would be saved. So in that helpless and totally dependent state, we must beg God for a mercy that we do not deserve. We must trust in the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, unlike us, did indeed love and serve God perfectly, flawlessly, sinlessly, and who carried out his Father's will perfectly. And the promise of Scripture is if you have been chosen by God from before the foundation of the world, if you have been given eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to believe, if you have been granted the ability to understand this and see your sins, and if you have been granted the gift of saving faith, and have been granted both the will and the power to repent and trust in Jesus, that Jesus Christ will open wide his arms, no matter how vile you have been, no matter how many sins you have committed, and his perfect blood will wash all of those sins away, all of them, those sins you have done in the past, those sins you are engaged in right now, and those sins you will commit at some point in the future, and Jesus' spotless righteousness will be imputed or credited to you, and you will not only be forgiven, but you will be saved to the uttermost. Hallelujah! And you will spend all of eternity with Jesus in heaven. And so the resurrection of Jesus Christ is God's personal guarantee of all of this. And so the repentance that God commands and expects from all people everywhere is very, very urgent. Because God is going to judge the world, not based on the arbitrary standard of human comparison, but by the standard of something called perfect righteousness. And very quickly, let me get into this with you. There are two ways in which judgment on earth is rendered. One is human comparison, and the other is perfect righteousness. When somebody bases judgment on human comparison, they go about it like this. Well, I may not be as good as St. Peter, but I'm not as bad as Adolf Hitler. And so I fit somewhere in between those two extremes, and so I'm okay. And many people take great comfort in that kind of judgment that is based on other human comparisons, which is why this form of judgment is so popular with lost people, because it never brings them to a place of repentance. But God doesn't judge people like that. God always judges people based on a standard called perfect righteousness. God judges all people as to where they stand with himself. In other words, it doesn't make any difference with God if you aren't as bad as some other really, really bad person. God wants to know how you measure up to him. You see, God is not just a little bit righteous. God is not just an elevated man, as Mormonism wrongly teaches. God is perfectly righteous. And God is not perfectly righteous Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays. God is perfectly righteous all the time. So God is perfectly righteous, and God is continuously righteous. And everybody who goes to heaven has to be just as perfectly righteous and just as continuously righteous as God. And they have to be as perfectly righteous and as continuously righteous as God himself in thought, word, and deed, 24 hours every day, seven days every week, or they can't go to heaven. Well, that puts us in a bad place, doesn't it? Therefore, if you ever sin, just one time, if you break even one single commandment of God, even for one millisecond, You are no longer perfectly righteous. You are no longer continuously righteous. And no matter how good you and other people may think you are, you are in fact nothing more than a transgressor of the law and a sinner in need of both forgiveness and righteousness. So all the world is guilty before God because all the world has sinned before God and come short of the standard of perfect and continuous righteousness. And because that's true, God has commanded all men everywhere to repent. and to trust in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, because Jesus alone lived a perfectly sinless life and was and is perfectly and continuously righteous. And those who are so blessed to be granted repentance will be saved or rescued from God's coming wrath, while those who refuse to repent will be judged. And God is going to do all of this by one man, Jesus Christ. Jesus will either be the gracious Savior or the frightening judge of every single human. Every human will stand before the living God, man, Jesus Christ, and none of our excuses will work on that court. We will all be found guilty unless we have trusted in Christ as our savior and surrendered to his authority and treasure and valued him above all else. And I've been thinking about this a lot because I'm getting closer to that. And I think the thing for me to say when I stand before God and he says, why should I let you into heaven? I should say you shouldn't. You shouldn't, I don't belong there. I have no claim to heaven. I got one thing. Your son died for me, and I trusted in that, and he lived a sinless life, and that sinless life, that righteousness he earned was imputed to me. That's the only reason I belong there, because of him. Without him, I don't belong there. And that's as opposed to saying, well, I did this, I did that, I did, I don't think that's gonna fly much with God. I really don't. Now, this sermon from the Apostle Paul doesn't sit very well in modern America. He didn't sit very well back then either. This message flies full force with love into the face of the contemporary assumption that even if Christ did rise from the dead, it really doesn't matter to me because I have my iPhone, and I have my friends, and I have my own life, and I'm happy with what I have, and I really don't find any of this very helpful anyway. But Paul counters that by saying, this will absolutely matter to you whether you find it helpful or not, because God's judgment of the world by Jesus Christ is not like possible life in another galaxy or some cool special effects from another video game. This judgment is like eternal death, and it's coming. It's like a freight train bearing down on you at 300 miles an hour, and you're chained to the railroad tracks. You can hear the rumbling of the train right now. Remember Gunsmoke? Remember the first time Burt Reynolds starred on Gunsmoke as a half-breed Indian? And he had his knife and he threw his knife on the ground and he put his ear on the knife to see if he could hear the vibration of the train coming. Huh? I did that all the time by the railroad tracks and the trains right there and I've got my head on the ground trying to hear it. It didn't work for me. But you can feel the rumblings of a train on the outskirts of the city. OK, that's what we're hearing right now. That's why you see this. You see this. The United States being squeezed right now. You see it's being squeezed. We're being squeezed. We're being squeezed. That's the rumblings. That's the rumblings. Now the last thing Paul says in his sermon in Athens at the end of verse 31 is this, having furnished proof to all men by raising him from the dead. In other words, of this coming judgment, God has furnished proof to all the universe. How? By raising Jesus from the dead. That's what he said. In other words, the literal and physical resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is designed by God to be a global warrant or a universal assurance or an indictment that repentance is absolutely necessary for being rescued from eternal damnation. But just how does the resurrection do that when three days have gone by or 3,000 years have gone by? And the answer is that God always intended for the resurrection to be known and believed through human witnesses. This does not in any way rule out the work of the Holy Spirit and sovereignly open our eyes, but it is always through human witnesses. Now there were no tape recordings back then, no video cameras, and no photographs. So when the resurrection occurred, God saw to it that there were eyewitnesses. And Jesus appeared to many different witnesses in enough different settings that they were fully convinced the reality of the resurrection so they could tell others and then write it down for us to read later on. So when Paul says at the end of verse 31, he has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom he has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising him from the dead, what he meant was that the testimony of those who physically saw Jesus rise from the dead will spread through the whole world and be a valid warrant for faith and trust and a valid assurance that this really happened. And here's the way other eyewitnesses of the Resurrection, besides Paul, puts it. The Apostle Peter, in a sermon preached about eight or ten years after the Resurrection, said this in the book of Acts, chapter 10, verses 38 through 41. You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses of all the things he did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They also put him to death by hanging him on a cross. God raised him up on the third day and granted that he become visible, not to all the people, but to witnesses who were chosen beforehand by God, that is to us who ate and drank with him after he arose from the dead. In other words, it was never God's intentional design for the risen Christ to be seen by everyone, not even in the day when it happened, and not today as much as we might wish we could. God's intentional design is found in the book of Acts, chapter 1, verse 3, that says, So it was God's design that Jesus appear repeatedly and with many proofs to a limited group of people whose job it was then to bear witness of what they saw and heard and what they said and what they wrote so that everyone who hears or reads this witness today will be able to know and be assured of all that God provides for the world about the resurrection of his son. And that's the way God designed for us to know divine truth. And that's exactly what we have in our text back in John 20, the Apostle John's own personal eyewitness account of the resurrection appearance of Jesus. And that's what we have in Matthew 28, which is Levi's own personal eyewitness account. And that's what we have in Luke 24, not Luke's own personal eyewitness account. but Dr. Luke's very careful record based on years of interviews with the people who did see and who did hear, including John the Baptist's parents and even the mother and foster father of Jesus Christ. And that is exactly what we have in Mark 16, John Mark's own echo of the Apostle Peter's eyewitness testimony, as well as his own as a young man living in Jerusalem at that time, and that is exactly what we have in the other writings of the New Testament. Now, on the other side of John 20, we have the same claim. For example, turn with me to John 19, verse 35. Right in the middle of Jesus' crucifixion, the Apostle John breaks off his narrative, and he says this, And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you also may believe. In other words, John is saying, I'm not telling you what somebody else told me. This is not some story that I'm simply repeating. I actually saw this, and I'm writing this down so that you will have an accurate record of the life and the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ so that you may believe and be saved. And this is what Paul meant back on Mars Hill. The world can know and trust in what happened in those last hours of Jesus' life because there were many, many eyewitnesses, and they gave testimony, and there were ways to test the accuracy of the testimony of the witnesses. Or we could look ahead to John 21, verse 24. This is the disciple who was testifying to these things and wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true. The point of this verse is that a physical eyewitness of the resurrection is writing this account. So this is not hearsay. And John's testimony can be checked out with others in the New Testament. So let's let John's witness to us this morning as you judge for yourself if these things are so. Look at John 20, verses 1 and 2. Now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb while it was still dark and saw the stone already taken away from the tomb. So she ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciples whom Jesus loved and said to them, they have taken away the Lord out of the tomb and we do not know where they have laid him. There are many things I could talk about here, such as the resurrection occurred early on the first day of the week, which is Sunday morning, which is why Sunday became known as the Lord's Day and not Saturday, which was the Sabbath, but suffice it to say that Mary did not believe that the resurrection had even happened. So she just assumed that Jesus' body had been moved. And I want you to again notice that this is another proof of how slow the disciples, including the women, were to personally believe that Jesus had been raised. These were not easily excitable or naive or superstitious or gullible people. They clearly had their own doubts here. So it is fine to doubt. It is fine to wonder. That isn't what's wrong or sinful. But there are answers to our doubts. There are solutions to our wonderings. And they are clearly provided for us in Scripture. So as you wonder or doubt, don't stop there. Solve the problems and answer the questions, and relieve yourself of those doubts by reading and trusting what the eyewitnesses say. Now look again at verses 3-11, So Peter and the other disciple went forth, and they were going to the tomb. The two were running together, and the other disciple ran ahead faster than Peter and came to the tomb first. And stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. And so Simon Peter also came following him and entered the tomb, and he saw the linen wrappings there, lying there, and a face cloth which had been based, which had been on his head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up into place by itself. John goes to a lot of trouble to tell you there was two coverings on Jesus. Two. So that tells you the shroud of Turin is not true. Because the shroud of Turin is one cloth. This is two, one on his face, one on his body. And he goes to a lot of words to make sure you realize that. Even the fact that the face cloth was rolled up into place by itself. So the other disciple who had first come to the tomb then also entered, and he saw and believed. For as yet they did not understand the scripture that he must rise again from the dead. Why does it say that? Jesus told them, I'm going to Jerusalem. They're going to kill me. And three days later, I'm going to rise from the dead. Read my lips. I mean, what do you not understand? It doesn't say that. It doesn't say they didn't believe what Jesus said. It said they didn't believe the scriptures. They didn't believe the scriptures. That's what it says, right? They did not understand the scripture that he must rise again from the dead. That's the issue. So the disciples went away again to their own homes. But Mary was standing outside the tomb weeping, and so as she wept, she stopped, she stooped and looked into the tomb. Now, just what does John want us to learn? At least two things. Number one, Jesus was raised bodily and physically, not spiritually or metaphysically. or mystically. 1 John wants us to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead physically, bodily, and literally, not spiritually or mystically. Some people back then as well as today are perfectly willing to talk about the resurrection, but only as a mystical symbol of Jesus' ongoing influence in the world to make us all better people. And that is certainly not John's point here. There was no physical body in the tomb that morning. That is what John is saying here. Jesus Christ literally and physically and in reality died by crucifixion. He literally and physically laid in the grave for three days and now he has literally received life from God in a supernatural miracle and he is bodily and physically risen from the dead in the very same body in which he died. That's what John's saying here. In fact, one of the most striking and stubborn historical facts about all of this is that the enemies of Jesus and of Christianity in those first days and weeks and months in Jerusalem could not produce the body. They would have loved to have produced the body. They were looking everywhere for him. And that would have ended the whole thing right then and there. Christianity would have been over before it started if they had simply produced Jesus' dead body. But there was no dead body to find because Jesus was literally and physically and bodily raised. Number two, like the body that died, but not exactly. Second, this body of Jesus that was raised was not exactly like the body that died, even though it was like the body that died. I'm not talking out of both sides of my mouth. There is both continuity and discontinuity at work here about Jesus' physical body. And this is very important because the resurrection of Jesus in the New Testament is viewed as the first fruits of the harvest of the resurrection of all true believers. As Paul put it in 1 Corinthians 15.23, Christ the firstfruits and after that those who are Christed is coming. The point of John giving us the details of the linen cloths that were lying there, even mentioning the cloth that was around Jesus' face was separate from the other garment that covered his body was to show how this resurrection was completely different from Lazarus' resurrection. Recall from John 11 that Jesus miraculously and supernaturally raised Lazarus after he'd been dead four days. And in John 11, 44, it says, the man who had died came forth bound hand and foot with wrappings. His face was wrapped around with a cloth. Jesus said to them, unbind him and let him go. So we see that other people had to help Lazarus out of his linen cloths and face covering. And that's because even after he was raised, Lazarus still had a sinful mortal body that would die again. But after his resurrection, Jesus no longer had a mortal body, and after this one death, Jesus will never die again. Knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again, death no longer is master over him. So at this point, Jesus' body is now different from all other human beings. And he simply passed through those grave clothes the same way he passed through doors in John 20 and 19 and 26. So Jesus' body was different, but it was also just the same. So even though he entered the locked room like no ordinary human can, in John 20 and 27, Jesus said to doubting Thomas, reach here with your finger and see my hands and reach here your hand and put it into my side and do not be unbelieving but believing. So even though Jesus was no longer bound by time and space and could appear and disappear at will after his resurrection, he still at the same time also had a very tangible and physical body that could be recognized and touched. So even in his resurrection, Jesus, you said, well, how did that happen? The answer, I don't have a clue. That's the answer. So even in his resurrection, Jesus was still the God man, fully God and fully man. And in Luke 24, 43, right now in the right hand of the Father, Jesus is fully God and fully man. When he comes back to the earth, he's going to be fully God and fully man. He'll never be any different. And in Luke 24, Luke tells us that Jesus ate fish in a honeycomb after he had risen. Now if you think that all of this is just simply gee whiz facts that really don't matter, please remember that those who are in Christ, that is those who truly believe on him and who trust in him, who belong to him and who receive forgiveness and salvation from him, those people will also be raised with him. Paul says in Philippians 3.21, Jesus will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of his glory by the exertion of the power that he has even to subject all things to himself. This is not a UFO, or a special effect in a movie, or irrelevant life on another galaxy. This is what will happen when God judges the world by one man, Jesus Christ. So if you belong to Jesus by faith in Him, you will receive a new body that is fashioned like the body of His glory, which will be equipped with no more human limitations. Hallelujah. And that means that our new bodies will be suited to see God in the fullness of his glory without being destroyed and we'll be able to enjoy God and enter forever into the new heavens and the new earth where we will spend eternity admiring God in all that he is and all that he has done. And this world that we love and enjoy so much compared to that world will be like a candle compared to the sun. So here's the real issue. Do you see? In John 20 and 8, it says, see, so that the other disciple who had first come to the tomb then also entered, and he saw and believed. So, do you see? What did he see? What did he believe? Jesus wasn't there. There was just some old gray clothes that he left behind, but that was enough. When John saw the undeniable evidence that Jesus was alive, the Bible says he believed. Now compare this to Mary in verse 18. She has met Jesus in the garden and spoken to him. And she returns to the disciple and says, I have seen the Lord. So now we're like John in the tomb. There is evidence, and either we see that evidence and we believe, or we don't. So the issue is, do you see? Do you believe? Now let me close with an analogy. Your doorbell rings this afternoon, and one of your friends asks to talk to you. He comes and says, I have some really bad news. Your brother is dead. And you say, shaking your head, I just don't believe it. I just saw him this morning and he was fine. I just don't believe it. It can't be. And your friend says, we went to the store together. And as we were leaving, this car went out of control and jumped the curb and hit your brother. And I knelt over him and I waited for the medical examiner. I was there. I saw it. He's really gone. And you say softly, I see. Now, what do you mean when you say, I see? You mean that the eyewitness testimony of your friend has now become a tool for you to believe something that you did not personally witness. And the reality of what happened in that window has become plain to you. But you were not there. You did not actually see it yourself. But you still say, and it is right to say, with all your heart, I see. I will say to you that God has brought you here this morning for this message and for this passage and for the truth about the resurrection of Jesus. And my prayer for you as we close is that you will be able, by God's grace, to say, I see. But there's one main difference between Jesus and my illustration, and that is that Jesus is alive. It is as though another messenger crashes through the door while you're still crying and says, your brother is alive. I just talked to him. And that is exactly what Mary said. I have seen the Lord. So do you see and do you believe? Amen. Let's pray. Oh, God. Help us to be the kind of people that believes the biblical record. And and that we see and understand the biblical record, that our eyes are not closed, that our heart is not hard, that we're hard and soft, our eyes are open, our ears are unstopped. and we see and we believe. In Jesus' name, amen.