This is going to be sort of a break from as we finished up Ephesians and we are going to head on into 1 Peter next and look at the resurrection. And I'm going to do it a little bit differently than I have normally. Normally I read the scripture and then would try to expound a little bit on it. This time I'm going to do something I've done about once before and that's going to be reading scripture as we go through and then looking at three different passages in succession. I think I've done this about one at a time and 30 years have passed for it. So if you don't like it, don't worry, I won't do it for another 30 years. So I don't know if I'm going to be preaching back any long about then. So start early. You might just get out the sermon outline. Very interesting Newsweek magazine cover article back in 1986. It was dealing with a very scientific demographic study of women and drawing certain conclusions, looked at women, what was going on, trying to look at things like how did the delay of marriage and seeking after career affect women and the chances of getting married and that sort of thing. And there was one quotation that was found in that article that has been remembered and quoted all through the years. In fact, a movie a few years later called Sleepless in Seattle, it quoted it as if this was a fact that everybody knew and there was no disputing it. And that quote said that for a single 40-year-old woman, She had a better chance of being hurt by a terrorist than getting married. It's right there in the middle of this article. Later on, it was kind of changed and the popular saying, well, a single woman, 35, had a greater chance of being struck by lightning than getting married. And the quote itself was quite memorable. I remember reading the article nearly 30 years ago and being struck by that one quote. I'm thinking, how can that be? Over the years, from my personal experience, I've known women who've been over 40 that have gotten married. I think the first one was back when I was in high school. My physics teacher, about six years old, married a woman who was 60 years old. Both for the first time. And over the years, I've known a handful, maybe not that many, but women over 35 and over 40 that have gotten married. I've not met anyone directly affected by a terrorist. After 9-11, and this was before 9-11, a pastor near New York City knew of somebody whose cousin was on one of the planes that flew out of Boston on that fateful day. several steps removed, but I don't know anybody directly. And so I wondered, how could that be? From my experience, although it's unusual, women over 40 do get married. It's not impossible, not like being struck by a terrorist. Well, it happened some 20 years later that Newsweek printed a retraction. I basically said, we were lying. That quote wasn't from the study itself, so the study was very careful. But they wanted to enliven the article. Demographics are boring. And so they asked a woman leader, you know, for something noteworthy to say, and she came up with this quote. Now she says later, well I was just joking. I'm sure they would think I was just joking. But it wasn't treated as a joke. And many people believed it for many years. And the reason I point this out is this is what's going on in society. That we have this technical study of what's happening among women and then we feel free to put in something that's completely made up. And so this confusion between fact and fiction, from opinion to what we can see demonstrated by statistics. And the result is that people nowadays have a hard time understanding facts from inferences, conclusions from things that have been shown to be true. I did not discern what is real and what is not. And it often leads to despair. Can I really know fact from fiction? Then we all have our own set of truths. It just depends upon how you look at facts. You look at it one way and I look at it another way. And we both come to our own conclusions. And a lot of people think that way. But one area where the ability to discern fact from fiction is crucial is in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Because the resurrection is the cornerstone of Christianity. And you might ask, was it like some maintain a carefully made up story to give encouragement to some disciples who were discouraged and didn't know what to do with their lives? Or was it some sort of wishful thinking? that people are naive and willing to believe anything or some sort of myth that's no longer relevant to us. Did it truly happen? Can we tell fact from fiction, and here we are some 2,000 years later. Let me assure you that we can, as we go to the scriptures, we'll see. First of all, they give strong evidence for the resurrection, that it did take place. And the second thing is that the early believers did not ascend to a blind faith. Rather, as we'll look at, we'll see, they were skeptics. They looked and were persuaded, not by faith. but by the evidence that they could see in the resurrection. The resurrection is not some sort of wishful thinking, or a mass hallucination, or the result of a naïve, unscientific mindset to that day, or some carefully crafted story. But it happened as we see it here. So I'll turn to three different passages. The first is in Psalm 16. And let's begin by reading that Psalm. Psalm 16. A Midchem of David. Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge. I say to the Lord, you are my Lord. I have no good apart from you. As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight. The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply. Their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my list. The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup. You hold my life. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. Indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance. I bless the Lord who gives me counsel, in the night also my heart instructs me. I set the Lord always before me, because He is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. Therefore, my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices. My flesh also dwells secure. For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your Holy One seek corruption. You have made known to me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Notice in particular verse 10. For you, talking to God, shall not abandon my soul to Sheol, or that's the place of death, or let your Holy One see corruption. Or we could translate it decay. I suspect most of us know what typically happens when a person dies. Their body begins that process of decay or corruption. And it really doesn't matter who it was, whether it's King David as he writes here, that his body went to decay, George Washington, that we would look to, Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, whoever it would be. One of the natural parts of this earthly existence is when you die, your body decays. And so David is well aware of this as he writes. Well aware of it as he pens verse 10. And he's, I think, knowing that after he dies, he's going to do what everybody else does, and his body is going to undergo decay. But he sees someone else. Being a prophet, he can see someone where this is not going to be true, and he calls them the Holy One. The one who is without sin. The one who would become later. For whom these words would be true. And the reference is not to David, whose body underwent decay. If Peter refers to, his tomb was there in Jerusalem, when he lived. And if we knew where to find it, we could find it as well. But it refers to Jesus Christ, who was truly dead, who was laid in the ground, but did not undergo the decay, the corruption of the body. And this is one of several passages in the Old Testament to speak about the resurrection. We're saying a couple of places already in Psalm 86 that speaks that same way. And you can look at Isaiah 53 that has a veiled reference to resurrection, because there we see the death of the suffering servant, and how does that chapter end? It ends with him saying, and I will see my posterity. How can someone who's dead see his offspring? Well, it's Jesus Christ as he's raised from the dead. And Jonah being three days in the whale, or the large fish, comes out again another picture of a resurrection on the third day. You realize if we look at Psalm 16, it was written a thousand years before Christ walked on the face of the earth. But it shows what was going to happen. What remarkable evidence. Because it implies that there's a God who planned it a thousand or more years in advance and then brought it about at the right time. That the resurrection was real because God planned it and executed it. The second passage I want us to read is found in John chapter 20. John 20 verses 1 to 10. This is after the death of Christ and previous chapters talk about his death and the circumstances and his burial. Now this is the beginning of the third day. Verse 1, Now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, but was still dark. and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, and that's John who writes this, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him. So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went to the tomb, and he saw the linen cloths lying there in the face cloth, which had been on Jesus' head. not lying with the linen cloths, but folded up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in. And he saw and believed. For as yet they did not understand the scripture. They must rise from the dead. Then the disciples went back to their homes. We can't cover in great detail this passage, but there are three things that I think we should note from here. First, is we have an eyewitness account. Look at the details that John records. He talks about who ran. How it was Peter, Simon Peter and himself who ran to the tomb after hearing the report that Mary Magdalene brought to them. He talked about stopping and looking in as he was a faster runner and got there first and that's consistent with where the grave would have been. It would have been sort of like a cave where you have to kind of bend down a little to look in the entrance to see what was inside. He would remember Simon Peter just going right in and not stopping and looking but going in. and looking around, and then himself going in and seeing the grave clothes, where they were, how they were arranged, how the head covering was separated from that which covered the body. We have the vivid account of someone who is a night witness who still remembers what happened that day. It was burned into his memory. He couldn't forget the details. It was that important to us. And some of us may remember 9-11 in that same sort of way. Because I remember where I was, the first images I saw of the Twin Towers in flames. And then the utter disbelief as they came tumbling down. It was caught by the TV cameras. John still vividly remembers that day. He vividly remembers that that tomb was empty. There was no body there. Only the grave clothes left behind. Second thing to notice is that the tomb was empty. Mary Magdalene brings this report to them and Peter and John go and see for themselves. And they go quickly. They want to find out. Is it as Mary Magdalene's reports to them? Now, as he talks about they still didn't understand the scripture about the resurrection. I think they went half expecting to find the body there. Or to have it moved. Or maybe Mary Magdalene went to the wrong tomb. But they go and they check it out to see what the situation is. But as they go, one of the things that is clear is that the tomb is empty. She visited the right tomb. It was where they laid Jesus. The grave clothes have been left behind, but the body isn't there. And so there's the perplexing question of what happened to the body of Jesus. And it's answered in John. You should read through the rest of the chapter and you should go on to the next chapter. He was raised from the dead. They saw him risen from the dead. What was abundantly clear from the very first is that the tomb was empty. It wasn't that the body was displaced or moved. The tomb was empty. And the third thing to notice, you look at verse 8 carefully, is that John, as he looked in, as he went in and examined, he was looking at that situation, and he believed because of the evidence of his eyes. It wasn't that he had a blind faith that somehow Jesus was raised from the dead. No, he went in and he saw, and he was able to recount what the claws were like, the separation where the head cloth was. And the sense is, in the Greek, that the claws sort of fell in on themselves. As if a body just sort of vanishes out from among the linen's claws. Notice how verse 8 ends. He saw and believed. Not a blind faith. He saw and he believed. He looked at the evidence. And what was the evidence that he saw? The empty tomb, the grave clothes. And he believed what? Well, he believed at a minimum that Jesus wasn't there. His body was no longer there. That the tomb was empty. And it's likely that he believed I would have been the first disciple to believe that Jesus was raised from the dead. John looked at the situation. And as he looked at the evidence, it forced him to believe in the resurrection. Not something he was naturally inclined to do. As he says, they weren't at all thinking in those terms. But the evidence convinced him there was a resurrection. that Jesus thought he was no longer in the tomb. It wasn't stolen. It wasn't moved. He wouldn't leave the grave closed behind. Now it seems to maybe have taken Peter a little bit longer than the others, that Jesus appears to Peter. We're told in 1 Corinthians that the others don't believe until Jesus appears in the upper room to them and then Thomas isn't there and he still doesn't believe even though he has the witnesses of all his good friends until a week later when he himself sees Christ. So these were not naive people that are eager to accept the idea of a resurrection. These were skeptics who wanted proof. And Jesus wanted them to examine, to look at the evidence. He told them on occasions, look at my hands and my feet. Touch me and see that I'm real. Give me some fish to eat. To make it clear that this wasn't some ghost or some spirit appearing to them, but this was one who was human. Who had flesh and blood as he stood before them. And so we see a faith that's not based on overlooking evidence and says I'm going to believe even though I can't see any evidence. It's a faith that's built on evidence. Of examining the facts and then embracing where those facts lead you. Not a blind or irrational faith. The third passage I want us to go to is in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. The chapter dealing with the resurrection, I'll just read a few verses, verses 3 to 8. For I delivered to you as a first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins, in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. And then he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve, then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, Last of all, as one untimely born, he appeared also to me." Notice he begins by saying of first importance, because Christianity rests on the reality of the resurrection. It is truthful, it happens. Take it away. And Christianity falls apart, and later on in the chapter, the apostle will deal with, what if there wasn't a resurrection? What would that mean? It would mean, number one, our preaching is in vain. It's empty. There's nothing to it. There's no substance to what we've been saying to you and proclaiming to you. Second, he says, your faith is in vain. What you believe in is useless, has no help for you. Third, we're false witnesses. We represent God. We say that God did something and He didn't do it. He didn't raise Jesus from the dead. Fourth, we're still in our sins. That problem of having sinned before our Holy God is still upon us. We're no better. Fifth, he says, those who've died believing in Christ are lost. While you're alive, maybe there was some hope that you'd find some way of reaching God. But if you die believing in Christ, there's no hope. Unless, he says, of all people who are most to be pitied. We spend our lives pursuing after a false hope. All of Christianity falls apart. if the resurrection didn't happen. And yet his whole point in saying these things is it isn't a false hope, the resurrection did occur. And he talks about the number of times that Christ appeared to people. A number of appearances, and these aren't even exhaustive, but a number of important appearances. And we should know three things about these appearances. First, is the diversity. to different situations, to different groups, to different numbers. You know, you can think maybe in terms of mass hallucination, you know, one person has hysteria, you know, his disciples gather together, you know, he's maybe not eating and he's going crazy, and they say, oh, I see Jesus! And then somebody else says, oh, I see him too! And then so, and if you don't see him well, you think, well, maybe I need to see him. So you can maybe think of how a mass hallucination could happen. But not when it's so many different times, and so many different places, and so many different groups or individuals. Because sometimes Jesus appears just to one, to Cephas, which is another name for Peter, to James, and the Apostle Paul himself. Sometimes in a small group to the Apostles. We have about three different instances where it appears the apostles first on that first Lord's Day evening, when most of the apostles were there, but not Thomas. And then a week later when Thomas was there, and then when some of them got fishing. There's two on the road to Mass that aren't mentioned. There's the appearance of Mary Magdalene that isn't mentioned. And then this arrives group of 500. Different appearances to different groups under different circumstances. All testify that they saw the risen Christ. Second thing is we see the mention of these people and these ones who have been eyewitnesses to the resurrection. It helps us to explain the psychological change that takes place before the resurrection to after the resurrection. You think of Peter. What was he like when Jesus was taken prisoner and was let off and was being examined? Well, he goes in and denies Jesus three times. Because a servant girl is asking him and saying, well, you're part of his followers. And he denies. He's not willing to stand up and say, yes, I'm one of his. He's a broken man. He's a man lacking in any confidence. And what do we see a few short weeks later? He's standing up before a whole crowd and he's proclaiming Jesus is the Christ to the gathered multitude. Showing that the sins of the religious leaders combined with Roman authorities have Jesus put to death, not afraid to mince his words. To be bold in the proclamation of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. How could he ever do that? Except he knew that Jesus was risen from the dead. Think of James. Before the resurrection, what do we know about James? You know, the half-brother of Jesus, we might say. Well, he didn't believe in Jesus at all. In fact, he and his family, from one point, they knew that Jesus was out of their mind and they were going to take him back home. Because Jesus didn't even have enough time to eat. And yet what happens? We have mentioned here, in meeting Jesus who is resurrected. He becomes one of the pillars of the early church, one of its leaders. And the author of the book of James, who we have in the New Testament. Complete turnaround toward his own half-brother. And then there's the apostle Paul himself. Think of what he was like before he met the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ. He was a persecutor of the church. He was convinced that the church was misleading people and taking them astray and getting them away from the true God. And so he was doing his best to persecute, to throw in prison, and put to death any who would follow after Jesus Christ. And yet he too meets the resurrected Lord on the road to Damascus. His life is changed from being a persecutor of the church to being one of its more ardent supporters. It's hard to explain these changes except for the fact that these men met the risen Christ and it changed their lives. The third consideration is that when Paul writes this, he says many of the eyewitnesses were still alive. The implication is they could verify the reality of the resurrection. To begin with, there is the apostle himself who testifies, but also he mentions 500, most of whom were still alive, while some have died. The implication is, if you don't believe me, If you don't believe my testimony to the resurrection, if you think I just saw some sort of vision and I was out of my mind, go and talk to one of these 500. Search out and find one of them, ask them, did you see the risen Jesus Christ? It was maybe 30 years and some had died, but most were still alive. They could be sought out, and if you were that concerned, you could find one. And ask him, what were the circumstances? What was it like when you saw Jesus Christ risen from the dead? You might compare it in some small way with the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. Now it's a little bit longer, it's 45 years ago. And yet there would be still witnesses. I suspect you could find that 17-year-old busboy who was shaking Kennedy's hand at the moment he was assassinated. And you could ask him, you know, was he shot or did the Secret Service or the Mafia take him off and is he hiding out in some desert island somewhere? Perhaps so he couldn't become President. You know, did you see Sir Han Sir Han actually shoot him? How was he facing? Did he shoot him in the head or the body or where did he? And you could ask others and you could look at the forensic reports and the coroner's report and see the evidence that Kennedy was assassinated. You and I weren't there. in the Ambassador Hotel when Kennedy was assassinated. But we can look at the evidence. We can look at the first-hand reports. If they were open to us, we could look at the coroner's report and all the rest. And be assured that he wasn't spirited away, but that he was shot and did die 26 hours later. And similarly, we can't build a time machine and go back 2,000 years ago and see our own meeting with the resurrected Christ. But what we can do is go to the eyewitness testimony. We can go to the evidence. We can examine it carefully and just ask, how credible are they as witnesses? And so we can have a faith that the resurrection was real. Not a blind faith, not an irrational faith, but a faith that's based on the overwhelming evidence that we see in scripture. The reliable evidence of men and women who were skeptical, who it took time to convince. Because it was such an extraordinary event. And so we can have confidence that the resurrection was real. That the tomb was empty. The application is two-fold. First, be convinced. Be like John who looked at the evidence. That the tomb was empty. That the body wasn't stolen. That Christ was raised from the dead. We have abundant evidence. And the more you look at scripture, the more you'll see the various ways it points to the resurrection being real. The evidence is overwhelming. The world will say, how can you know? That's just your opinion, your thoughts. But it isn't. There's evidence. And the evidence points to the tomb being empty. The evidence overwhelmingly points to Jesus Christ being raised from the dead. And the ones who are irrational are those who deny it. And second thing, Like Peter and James and Paul. If you've met the resurrected and living Christ, your life is never the same. It has to be changed. So I encourage you to think about that. How has my life been changed? How am I different? Because I have met the living. and resurrected Christ. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we give thanks that that tomb was indeed empty. And that in Scripture you've given to us many real and abundant proofs, evidence that the tomb was empty. We have the accounts of Matthew, and Mark, and Luke, and John, and the Apostle Paul, and the words of Peter, and so much more. We have the Old Testament prophecies that look forward to a Messiah, and look forward to death and resurrection. Thank you that we can look at these evidence, and like John, can have faith. Faith that the tomb was empty. Faith that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. Faith that Jesus Christ indeed is the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament. That our faith can rest I'm sure in strong evidence. Help us each one, young or old, to be a man or a woman of faith. Because we have known the resurrected Lord. It's in His name we pray. Amen.