The empty tomb on the first day of the week was the greatest news in the world because of why it was empty. God had raised his son, Jesus Christ, from the dead, just as Jesus taught would happen. And the group of women who went to the tomb that Sunday morning encountered an angel. They heard the good news from the angel of Christ's resurrection, and they were told to run and tell the disciples what had happened. However, This group of women, this was not the only group that left the tomb that day with news about what happened. Pilate had previously dispatched, you'll recall, a band of soldiers to guard the tomb. In the words of 27 verse 64, lest his disciples go and steal him away and tell the people that he's risen from the dead. The soldiers were sent there. And now these soldiers have journeyed from the tomb on the third day, but they aren't running with joy like the women. They aren't running to the disciples either. They're going instead to the religious authorities, and their interaction with those authorities this morning comprises our text in verses 11 to 15, our next to last message in the Gospel of Matthew. We see in verse 11, the report from the soldiers in verses 12 to 14 instructions to the soldiers. And in verse 15, the obedience of the soldiers, they are highlighted in this account. They give a report, they receive instructions and they obey accordingly. In verse 11, it tells us that while they were going, and this refers to the women. We've just been told in verse 8, 9, and 10 that the women have departed with great joy. They even encounter Christ along the way who encourages them to go and tell. And so while they were going in verse 11, they're the antecedent of the they. It's referring to those women running And Matthew now is going to give you a split screen narrative here. He's telling you that while the women are going, on the other side, envision someone else going as well. Behold, some of the guard. They went into the city, and they told the chief priests all that had taken place. We don't know why only some of the soldiers from that tomb went. We don't know where the ones went who didn't go straight to the religious authorities. What we aren't told either are the number of soldiers who go to the religious authorities for this following conversation. But, be assured, this following conversation had to be very awkward. The religious authorities might not have been surprised that the guards return from the tomb on the third day. After all, their instruction in chapter 2764, according to what Pilate was requested, was that he would dispatch soldiers who would guard until the third day because Jesus said that after three days he would rise. And so it's not a big surprise that the soldiers are no longer at the tomb. After all, it is now the third day. However, However, the guards now report something has happened to the tomb. It is no longer secured. They were to secure the tomb until the third day, and here they have returned on this third day with terrible news according to the religious leaders. The guards, in fact, tell us, according to Matthew here, they report all that had taken place. Now, what would they have recounted? Three things at least. They would have reported an earthquake. This is what Matthew 28 verse 2 tells us. Behold, there was a great earthquake. So you have a geographical, geological disturbance. And this earthquake would have been a part of their account. The appearance, number two, the appearance of an angel from heaven. It tells us that there was an earthquake for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven. And it tells us in verse three, his appearance was like lightning, his clothing was like snow. And in verse four, for fear of him, the guards trembled and became like dead men. So they report an earthquake which was brought about by this angel descending from heaven. Number three, they could have reported and certainly did the rolling back of the stone. The angel descends from heaven and it tells us in verse two that he rolled back the stone and sat on it. in this almost comical picture of victory as if to say, what are you going to do now? The stone has been rolled back, the tomb is empty. Now how much the guards saw after that and how much they comprehended in those moments is not clear. The text does not tell us. That's how we know. We'd be left only with speculation. But the angel's appearance does cause them to recoil in fright and perhaps even passing out. And after regaining their bearings and consciousness, they discover the empty tomb and have to report this. Because of how the religious leaders react, it's very clear they know Jesus's body is no longer in the tomb. The guards are going to report this because now we need a cover story. So, consider though for a moment, if you're the religious leaders, and you're getting this account from the guards who were just at that tomb, and they are saying that there was an earthquake, an angel has appeared, the stole has rolled back, you get a sense that something divine has happened. The leaders are in an interesting position here because they've been watching and hearing about divine things throughout Jesus's ministry. They know that he's even healed on the Sabbath. They know he's raised people. They know he's healed the lepers and he has helped people who have been paralyzed to take up their mat and walk. Their lack of trust in Christ is not because of an absence of evidence. Unbelief is never ultimately rooted in an absence of evidence. These people don't want to believe. They hate Jesus and what he stands for. They want their power over the people. They don't truly know God. Their hearts are darkened and their understanding is darkened. This is a much deeper problem than particular miracles or proofs on the outside. Even despite all that Jesus has done, they kept asking for signs from Him. But you can behold in the Gospels, one sign after another. Miracles in Galilee, miracles in Judea. This was not a lack of divine work through this appointed man. And yet, with this appearance of an angel, this earthquake, this appearance of the angel rolling back the stone, the guards are going to report this empty tomb, putting the religious leaders in a very difficult situation, in their perspective. Notice the guards did not go to Pilate. Okay, so they go to the religious leaders. A pilot sends them, they're likely as soldiers, that's what the text seems to imply. It's the same word for soldiers used elsewhere in Matthew 27 to refer to the Roman soldiers. We have no reason to think these are somehow a different guard or group of people. So these soldiers, dispatched by pilot, don't go to pilot first. They may have hesitated because If you were assigned to guard someone alive or dead and failed in your task, you could be severely reprimanded, punished, even executed. More on that in a moment. In other words, this is not news they would rush to say, hey pilot, we want to tell you what's happened. They go first to religious leaders, Maybe they can concoct some sort of story. Maybe their lives can be preserved. After all, the religious authorities had been the ones who asked Pilate for the guard. They were more interested than Pilate was in Matthew 27 at the end of that chapter in getting that tomb secure. Now the soldiers are going to report what has taken place. They're going to go to the chief priests, who were mainly Sadducees. As well, you'll see the elders involved, which were other religious leaders that would have included even the Pharisees in verses 11 and 12. So here in verse 12, we see that when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers. The report of the guard is a terrible issue in the minds of the chief priests, and it's not an issue they want to handle on their own. Notice they need to convene with someone. It says here in verse 12, the chief priests assembled with the elders. They're going outside the group. So the soldiers have come to them, right? And they say, we need to reach out to other religious leaders. This is a big issue. We want to be on the same page here. We can't handle this on our own. The language of gathering together with religious leaders is used multiple times in Matthew's Gospel. And it's all bad. In Matthew 26, it tells us in verse 3 that the chief priests and the elders gathered together with the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, and bad things are happening. They're plotting to kill Jesus sometime after Passover is over. And then in Matthew 26, 57, it tells us that those who had seized Jesus took him to Caiaphas, the high priest, where the scribes and the elders had gathered. This is for the trial of Jesus before Jewish authorities. In Matthew 27, 62, it tells us that after the day of preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate, and they want the tomb secured. Whenever the religious leaders are gathering together, in other words, you should expect something bad going on. They're not gathering together for any good reasons in Matthew's gospel. They're motivated by terrible, conspiratorial, malicious motives. After their huddle, they have hatched a plan. Notice the language at the end. After they've gathered together, they gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers. This is a bribe, okay? They're paying the soldiers to do something. The leaders want to circulate a certain story about the empty tomb. Notice the leaders don't dispute that the tomb is empty. This is an important historical point. In fact, the early centuries of the Christian church and the early centuries of non-church events in history, they never disputed the empty tomb. It was well established historically from the earliest years of the birth of Christianity that the tomb was empty. The empty tomb is the problem. It is not in doubt. The leaders need to control the narrative. This is about damage control at this point. It's breaking news that's going to infiltrate the city of Jerusalem and they might face a situation similar to what some Old Testament stories have reported where a man of God, clearly in some sort of divine work, has gone missing. This happened with Enoch in Genesis 5, this happened with Elijah in 2 Kings, and if all of a sudden this man of God has been taken or some sort of divine work has happened and the tomb is now empty, they may be thinking, just like in the other cases, people aren't going to be seeing him. In fact, their story would work really well as long as he doesn't actually appear to anybody. Because the moment resurrection appearances start happening, that's going to ruin this whole thing. And when a divine taking of a man of God happened in the Old Testament, it wasn't followed later on by some sort of resurrection appearances. They have no precedent for this. In fact, any Jews who believe in the bodily resurrection know that that happens at the end of history. It doesn't happen on the third day for one guy in the middle of history. They don't have categories for this. So this, to them, seems like the best account. And I consider part of their motive here. If they're saying in verse 13, we're going to pay the soldiers to say the disciples came by night and stole them away. Everybody knows the disciples were devoted to this guy. I mean, if anybody's going to be willing to take him, surely the crowds would believe that the disciples would be the ones. We've got to explain the empty tomb. That's the problem. Notice they're offering money in verse 12. The accounts of the Passion Week have involved the chief priests offering money to get what they need done, done. Who was the guy earlier? Well, Matthew 26 is Judas. And they agree to pay him a sum of money to betray Jesus. And here they're paying Roman soldiers to deceive others, all while knowing this is not the truth of the empty tomb. So the bribery of Judas, later followed by the bribery of the guards, in Matthew 26 and in Matthew 28, these are what the religious leaders are engaging in. And I think we should just acknowledge the tragedy that these religious leaders are not interested in following the truth where it leads, but are concerned for a multiplicity of other things, including their power and influence over the people, and in their hard hearts and unbelief, they are willing to engage in bribery to get done what they want done. In verse 13, tell the people, his disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep. Various elements to this story here. Number one, the disciples stole the body. Number two, when did it happen? At night. And number three, how did they get away with it? The guards were sleeping. Every phrase here matters. The disciples were the ones that did it. Here's when they did it, and here's how they got away with it. We need to note an irony here though, because in chapter 27, 64, when the religious leaders came to Pilate and they wanted him to order a secured tomb, notice what they say. In verse 64, order the tomb to be secured, lest his disciples go and steal him away. Okay, so the very thing that motivated the securing of the tomb from the religious leader's perspective, that the disciples would somehow steal the body, this is actually, while it was something they wanted to prevent, it's the very story they're now going to have them circulate. They're not very original with any other lie because this seems most plausible to them, at least most believable. Again, we don't know what they expected, but any precedent of a man of God being taken in a divine work never resulted in any of these people appearing to people afterwards. The worst possible thing that could happen to their theory is that someone see the risen Jesus. And that theory no longer holds water. So verse 14, they say, and if this comes to the governor's ears, who's the governor here? The governor is Pilate. He's the governor in Judea from these other previous chapters. Now, after the Passover, Pilate always returned to his place of residence. All between Jewish feasts, he lived in Caesarea in the north. And during feasts, he would come down to Jerusalem, but this is not where his permanent residence was. So Pilate's eventually going to return. The Passover and the celebrations will end up concluding when the feast is over after the week that follows Passover. And when he does, perhaps he won't even hear of this empty tomb. But they do tell the soldiers, don't worry. If this comes to the governor's ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble. Why would this be necessary? Because if a body is taken on their watch, that they were charged to guard either a prisoner alive or a man that is dead, if the royal seal is broken over the tomb and the soldiers have let something happen and be taken that shouldn't be taken or an escape, then they could be punished for dereliction of duty severely. I'll give you an example. In Acts chapter 12, Peter is delivered by an angel after he is taken captive. An angel of the Lord appears to him in Acts 12, 7. His chains fall off and Peter leaves the prison. And here's what happens in verse 19. Herod searches for Peter and doesn't find him. He examined the soldiers and ordered that they all be put to death. Why? Because Peter went missing and they were to guard Peter. Give you another example from Acts 16. In Acts 16, Paul and Silas are in prison, and around midnight, they're singing hymns, and a powerful work of God happens, an earthquake and an appearance of an angel, and the prison doors go open, and you know what happens in verse 27? The jailer draws his sword to kill himself. Why? Because the people he's charged to guard are escaping, and he knows what would be coming for him. So when you're these Roman soldiers in Matthew 28, You don't go to Pilate first. You go to the religious leaders. What can we do about this? A couple things to keep in mind. It would do Pilate no good to have rumors that Jesus was raised from the dead. He was purportedly a king. This is one of the worst things that could happen for the Roman government that wanted Caesar alone to be viewed as king and to be worshiped. And so the Jewish leaders are confident that if Pilate hears about this, and we know what we can tell him, because the guards would be the witnesses to the empty tomb because of the disciples stealing the body. They would be first-hand witnesses. In other words, it would be in Pilate's interest to have these guards alive to spread this rumor. It's not in Pilate's best interest for these guards who would be able to tell this story for people to corroborate with them for these guards to be executed. So they assure the soldiers if the governor hears about it, if it reaches his ears, we'll satisfy him and keep you out of trouble. And I think we could also acknowledge they would not be below giving him money too if it was necessary to keep Pilate in good spirits. They seem to be willing to shell out whatever they need to. If you're the guards though, I mean this is going to keep you alive, but it's embarrassing. This is a very humiliating story that's going to put you in an awful light. This is a career ender maybe, but at least they would be alive to tell the tale from that perspective. Now in verse 15 it tells us they took the money. We should understand this to mean they agreed to the plan. They didn't take the money and then change their mind. It tells us they did as they were directed, which means they are complicit in this plan to say these particular things, that the disciples are the ones that came, they came by night, that's when, and how did they get away with it? We were sleeping. It tells us in verse 15, the story's been spread among the Jews to this day. When Matthew wrote the gospel, it was in the 50s or 60s AD of that first century, And decades later then, Matthew tells us to this day, this is a story that has been spread in Jerusalem. There were people who figured this was the explanation for the empty tomb. Let's reflect together now on some problems with the rumor. What are problems of this story that the disciples stole the body at night while the guards were sleeping? I can think of at least four. Number one, how did these fearful disciples who avoided being even at the cross, with the exception of John who was caring for Mary, who avoided being at the cross, who fled in Gethsemane when the armed crowd arrested Jesus, how did they gather the courage to steal his body in the presence of Roman soldiers? People could verify that Judas was the one that led the armed crowd to arrest Jesus. People would know and could verify that the disciples fled after Jesus was arrested. People could know and verify that in the courtyard of the high priest, Peter denied even knowing Jesus again and again. People would know the disciples, with the exception of John, weren't at the cross. Even if the disciples had decided to steal the body, imagine their surprise when they approach the tomb and find it guarded by Roman soldiers. Roman soldiers would be a deterrent for any even mildly bold disciple who somehow gathered this courage to carry through with it. They could be punished and executed as well. It would end up violating the Roman seal. So the first problem with this story is that it would be easy for witnesses in the first century to verify that the disciples were characterized by fear, reluctance, hesitation, denial, and betrayal. And yet, for whatever reason, on the third day, they would go and risk, in the presence of a Roman guard trying to steal the body of Jesus, Problem number two, how are all of the guards asleep at the same time? Nighttime would be when a graveyard guard needed to be the most vigilant. That time period was when a dead body would be the most vulnerable inside a tomb. It's dark. Mischievous things happen during these hours. And you're telling me that every one of the guards was asleep at the same time and no less during the night that leads into the third day. In the language of Matthew 27, 63 to 64, the language to Pilate was, Jesus said after three days he would rise. They've been instructed to guard the tomb until the third day, because that's according to Jesus' own prediction. This would be the most important day to be vigilant. Not the first day he was dead or the second day, but the third. They know when they get to leave the tomb because of when Jesus predicted he would rise by. In other words, the soldiers are gonna want people to believe that during the most vulnerable hours and on the most important night, every one of the guards was sound asleep. Number three, talking about sleep, how did the guards stay asleep, all of them staying asleep while the disciples are breaking the Roman seal, rolling back the stone and taking the body of Jesus. This isn't a quiet event. Not even one guard was stirred and woke up to notice what was happening. This isn't something you get done in a few minutes. Imagine the trepidation and caution that all of these disciples would have to engage in with the band of these armed Roman soldiers at night with a stone-covered tomb. Number four, if the guards were asleep, how did they know the disciples stole the body of Jesus? If all the guards were asleep, then how did they know who took the body? They are specifically calling out Jesus' disciples as the body snatchers. But they're not awake. It's not like there were security cameras. Come on, right? It's not like you could somehow look at the footage from the night before and see who took them. Now, this story would keep the guards alive, but it's not very believable at all. There are problems with it completely. Maybe, though, the thought was, well, at least a bad story is better than no story because at least there's some sort of explanation being offered. This isn't the only alternative theory people have offered throughout history. In the Quran, for example, Muhammad taught that Jesus never even went to the cross. In Surah 4, verses 157 to 158, the Quran teaches that Allah raised up Jesus to himself before the cross ever happened. So Jesus never even died. In fact, many Muslims believe traditionally that someone died in Jesus' place. But consider what this would mean. This means that Jewish and Roman sources outside the Bible are wrong in the 1st and 2nd centuries. Because sources outside the Bible, both Jewish historians and Roman historians, testify that Jesus of Nazareth died by crucifixion. And these historical records are written hundreds of years earlier than the Quran. Much closer to the events, with much more reliable and credible people. Also, in addition to this, are we to believe that Pilate sentenced a man to be flogged and crucified who wasn't actually Jesus and Pilate didn't know it? And that the crowd who chanted, crucify him, crucify him, didn't recognize that this wasn't Jesus whom they'd seen ministering in Jerusalem and in Galilee for years? Wouldn't the religious leaders at least have known that this was the wrong man? Jesus' disciples fled when Jesus was arrested. Well, why did the disciples flee if someone else had gone to the cross? Early Christians report that Joseph of Arimathea buried Jesus. Are we to assume that Joseph of Arimathea was wrong on the identity of who he buried and that the women who witnessed the body in the tomb didn't realize they were burying someone else? Are we to believe that all of these people in these early centuries with both biblical sources and Jewish and historical sources and Roman sources outside the Bible are all wrong and that someone else than Jesus had been crucified? The theory of Jesus never going to a cross is in direct historical contradiction to the earliest sources inside and outside the Bible. It makes no sense, and people do not take it seriously. Here's a second theory. I say second if you consider the disciples stole the body as the first theory, then I just gave you a second one. Here's a third. Jesus didn't really die on the cross. He was severely impaired and swooned. but he escaped the tomb having never actually died. So the disciples do see a Jesus who's come out of the tomb and his tomb was empty because he really wasn't there. It was simply because he never actually died. Jesus fainted in some way and became unconscious and the Roman soldiers would think he was dead and therefore he's buried. Now, this theory is also unconvincing. First of all, because it underestimates crucifixion. He's not stoned. He's not beaten. He's crucified. Roman soldiers know how to crucify people. When you carry your cross, it's a one-way trip to your death. People don't ask what one another did over the weekend and someone say, I survived crucifixion. That didn't happen. You hung on the cross until you were dead and they broke their legs to ensure that you were dead. This theory assumes that a nearly dead man is mistakenly considered dead by Roman soldiers who crucify people all the time. And it assumes that he could be put in a tomb by people who didn't realize he was actually alive. People somehow buried Jesus not realizing he's nearly dead, just unconscious. The theory assumes that on the third day, he managed, somehow keeping track of time accurately, inside the tomb, this nearly dead man, manages to roll back the stone, breaking the royal cords and the seal on the face of the rock, and escaping the Roman soldiers without them noticing. This theory assumes that Jesus, a nearly dead man, manages to convince the women, and later his disciples, that he had been raised from the dead by the power of God. And this nearly dead man would somehow be in enough physical strength and a convincingly enough condition to persuade or even deceive, that's the better word, his followers that he had been raised, though he never even actually died. Nine months ago, I had back surgery. Microscopic back surgery. I was given anesthesia. The entire operation was just a couple hours. It was in a clean medical facility, trained doctors, And for several weeks, I wasn't supposed to lift anything more than 10 pounds because healing was taking place and scar tissue was developing. And this theory supposes that Jesus of Nazareth is crucified and somehow over a day and a half later, hours wise, manages to escape the tomb. This man who had been flogged within an inch of his life already, This theory does not have any historical backing that he somehow didn't really die on the cross in terms of plausibility. Theory number four, what about the women going to the wrong tomb? Okay, so the women went to the wrong tomb and it was empty. Now granted, it just happens to be that Everybody else went to the wrong tomb after that. But the women go to the wrong tomb on the first Easter morning because their grief and their shock over Jesus' death. But this means everyone else goes to the wrong tomb, leading them to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead. What's the easiest way to prove this? When Joseph of Arimathea hears about it, he goes to his tomb. He says, everybody, come here. You've been going to the wrong tomb. I put Jesus' body, I know where my family tomb is. In other words, even if the women went to the wrong tomb on that morning, Christianity would have never birthed from Jerusalem for that mistake. Someone could have easily identified the correct tomb. The entire Christian movement would have been shut down from the beginning. Joseph of Arimathea could have showed everybody the body of Jesus, dead and cold. This also fails to account for what the disciples testified. The theory fails to consider the disciples aren't simply saying the tomb is empty. They're saying Jesus appeared to them. You have to deal with the testimony of the disciples who don't simply deal with an empty tomb as a part of the message, but a risen Christ who has appeared to them. Even if the women went to the wrong tomb on that Sunday morning, which according to Matthew's gospel, they knew where the tomb was because they sat opposite from it while Joseph of Arimathea put him in there. But even hypothetically, if you want to go along with that theory, there are too many problems with it. The theory fails to account for what else the disciples testify. Here's a fifth one. The disciples hallucinated the resurrection appearances. Because this is something you have to deal with, with these resurrection appearances. They claim that not only was the tomb empty after Jesus was buried in it, after he was crucified, but that he appeared in a risen body to them. So there is a theory that the disciples merely hallucinated all of these religious resurrection experiences, appearances. What are the problems with this? First of all, hallucinations don't work that way. It's a failure to understand how hallucinations work psychologically. They're not some objective thing outside of you that multiple people would see. In other words, a hallucination happens to one person, and if I'm hallucinating, you're not seeing what I'm seeing. That's why it's a hallucination. I'm seeing what's not actually there. So this theory says that 12 disciples, well, 11, as well as hundreds of other people, 500 according to Paul, claimed to have seen the risen Christ, but whereas all were actually hallucinating. This is not a plausible theory in the least. It fails to convince based on even the merest understanding psychologically of how hallucinations work. In his book, The Resurrection of the Son of God, scholar N.T. Wright says, nobody was expecting this kind of thing, this resurrected body on the third day. Nobody would have invented it. To suggest otherwise is to stop doing history and enter into some fantasy world. This isn't something that would have been a plausible story people were wanting to sell unless it had actually happened. So with those theories in mind, here are some truths we need to keep before us to put this whole gospel story in context. Because not only was I wanting to look at our verses in 11 through 15, I wanted to spend some time defending more broadly the idea of the resurrection in the empty tomb. It's something we should reflect on. Because there are people in our culture who believe various explanations about why the tomb was empty. And it is helpful for us to know, in a faith-strengthening way, what problems there are with alternative views. Because sometimes someone who says, well, here's what I think probably happened to Jesus, never questioned their assumptions. They're skeptical without being skeptical of their skepticism. I want to give you four truths to keep in mind to put this whole gospel announcement of the resurrection in context. Number one, Jews believe the resurrection of the body was for the end of history. This is such an important theological truth because these Jews begin to announce that for one man in the middle of history on the third day, God raised him from the dead as the first fruits of resurrection. What would compel these Jews to make such a massive theological declaration which is different from all of their other previous theological assumptions about the resurrection of the dead that would happen to all people at the end of history? This theological truth, friends, would be an insurmountable obstacle for Jews because Paul and the other apostles begin to preach historically the risen Christ and people who are Jews as well as Gentiles begin to believe that the resurrection happened to this guy on the third day. The Jews in the first century began to testify, these disciples did, who were Jews, that Jesus appeared to them. The conversion of Saul of Tarsus showed that a fierce, hostile opponent of the Christian faith could be converted because he says he encountered the risen Jesus. Jews who have this prevailing theology of the resurrection don't just flippantly switch that around. Here's a second truth to keep in mind. You must know that the least likely city in all the world for the gospel to launch from if the resurrection was a fraud. Would be Jerusalem. The least likely city in all the world, if the resurrection was a fraud for Christianity to then launch from. would be Jerusalem. Why? Because people know that He died. His disciples would know that He died and did not rise. And if the leaders had had the body, they would have paraded it in the streets of the city. So of all the places in the world where people would have known otherwise, the gospel news of Jesus that He had risen from the dead launches from Jerusalem. So of these four truths, here's number three. The first witnesses to the truth of the resurrection were women. I mentioned this last week. It's very important to note that in the ancient world, women were not viewed as credible legal witnesses. If you lived in the ancient world and you wanted to fabricate an account, so hypothetically follow this logic, if you wanted to fabricate an account in the ancient world in a way that others would believe it, you don't make up a story where the women at the tomb are the first witnesses and the mouthpieces. That immediately discredits your story. Everybody would know that. Your goal is to tell the truth about what happened, and if the truth is that women were indeed the first witnesses to the empty tomb and the truth of the resurrection, then that's exactly what you must report come what may. The report of the encounter of these women with the risen Christ and the recording of it in the Gospel of Matthew strengthens the case for the resurrection of the dead on the third day of Christ. Number four. People don't die for what they know is a lie. People don't die for what they think is the truth, maybe. People don't die for what they know is a lie. People die for what they believe is the truth. If Jesus didn't rise from the dead, you know who knew it? All of his disciples. If Jesus didn't truly appear to people, you know who would know that? All of his disciples. And yet even some of the family of Jesus, who did not believe in him, came to faith in him. They didn't even want to be involved in his burial. And one of them is going to become a writer of a New Testament letter? The book of James? And a leader in the early church? If Jesus didn't rise from the dead, the disciples know that. They would have no motive to steal the body. They have nothing to gain. They have everything to lose. They have everything to lose. What do they have to lose? They would be ostracized, arrested, martyred for something they know is a lie. They have no confidence that this would catch on. There is no plausible, reasonable motive why these men who know something is a lie would do this. One philosopher says it this way, who defends the resurrection. He says, why would the apostles lie? Liars lie for selfish reasons. If they lied, what was their motive? What would they get out of it? What they got was misunderstanding, rejection, persecution, torture, and martyrdom. It makes no sense. And yet these men, in short, immediate order, begin to boldly proclaim that Jesus had risen from the dead, had appeared to them. This man who had been crucified and buried, The bodily resurrection, here's the sum idea here. The summary idea is the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ is the best historical explanation of the empty tomb. And I've wanted to walk us through some other alternative theories so that we could see how many problems there are with saying, well, the resurrection, you know, it involves this grand miracle. If we believe that there is a God who has made the world, then a resurrection from the dead is not a problem. If the problem is with the miracle itself, then other assumptions have to be dealt with. But if there is a God who has made the world and we can take other scripture at face value, then we should trust that Christ accomplished what he did as the son of God, who said on the third day, I will be raised. This is not a problem for the Lord. These men begin to proclaim this, and it's also because historically the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the best historical explanation, not just a biblical account, but the others don't make sense plausibly at all. What are the implications of this? Pastor Tim Keller in New York says in his book The Reason for God, if Jesus rose from the dead, then you have to accept all that he said. If he didn't rise from the dead, then why worry about any of what he said? The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teaching, but on whether or not he rose from the dead. Because if he rose from the dead, then everything he said matters. If he lied, if he deceived, if the disciples stole the body, then nothing Jesus said should be treated with any greater authority compared to any other person in history who tried to get a following. I think C.S. Lewis is absolutely right in mere Christianity when he says, If false is of no importance, if true of infinite importance, the only thing it cannot be is moderately important. It's either the most important news in the universe because the empty tomb can only be explained biblically and historically by the fact that Christ truly rose from the dead, or Christianity is of no importance at all and we are in our sins. Jesus is who he said he was, my friend, and he will be this forever. His name is a redeeming name. The resurrection is of a savior who died on the cross bearing our sins. Oh, that God would give us the heart and the mind to see the truth of the resurrection and to love the announcement of the gospel news that the women were overjoyed to tell and were compelled to run to tell and that we should want to announce as well. The name of Jesus means Yahweh saves. The father sent the son to save. We deserve death and wrath and hell and God sent his only son so that whoever would believe in him would not perish but have eternal life. There are good historical and apologetic arguments to defend the resurrection. But the Bible tells us that he rose from the dead not merely as a historical fact, it's the why. It's the why. Even Jewish and Roman sources tell us that Jesus was crucified on a cross. We need the Bible to tell us why. What was happening on the cross that makes that news? More than just history, but something for people to announce and proclaim and to die for. What makes it this kind of news? The message of Christianity is that in history, God sent his only son who lived a sinless life. And at the end of his earthly ministry, it climaxed in the appointed hour of his death, so that on the cross, he would bear for us the sin, the wrath, and the hell that we deserved. He drank the cup for us in our place, that all of our sins and all of our iniquities became imputed, put upon him, him who knew no sin all of his life. The word became flesh so that in this flesh, he would die for us and die perfectly as a sacrifice. that we would love, worship and follow Christ. You see, that's what the women realized. The soldiers flee and they're capitulating in their conspiracy with the religious leaders who don't maybe know what has actually happened to this divine man or what's coming. But either way, they don't want the people to know certain things. And so they spread this story as implausible and as historically problematic as it is. What do the women do? They grab his feet and they worship him. Because if Jesus has been raised from the dead, then he's worthy of nothing less. He's worthy of eternal, infinite glory. Because he indeed is the Son of God. And that means everything that he says matters.