Hi, this is Bob from Hackberry House. Welcome again to God's Word. Father, today we talk about the very heart of it all, your death, your burial. Oh, Jesus, give grace and open our hearts to the glory of these moments. In Jesus' name, amen. Hackberry House is a website that you can access by typing into your computer myheartcry.net. When you get there, go to the library page, scroll down to the lessons, and we are on lesson 39. While you're on the page, you'll find other things that may be of interest to you, I trust, things about Romanism, ecumenism, the last days, and so on. You'll find some very interesting things there. I trust you will go there, enjoy yourself. Of course, it's all free. As the Word of God was given to us, we pass it on freely, don't we? Lesson 39, Jesus, the Final Weeks, Part 2. Well, we are on the final days of Jesus' life right now. His life before Calvary. Of course, his life is eternal, and we're going to see him raised from the dead in a while, but first this horrible thing that we must discuss. Horrible in the flesh, and yet because of what he did, we live forever, and so it's not horrible after all. Thank God that Jesus died, and he died for us. Matthew 27 will be our first passage today. Matthew 27. 27 to 31, the soldiers take Jesus to the Praetorium. Again, that's the headquarters of the governor. They gather the garrison around him. They strip him and put a scarlet robe on him. Another place it says they put a purple robe on him, and it's possible that it was both colors, or it's possible that they did this two times. Twisted a crown of thorns, put it on his head, a reed in his hand. We've talked about something like this before. mocked him, called him the king of the Jews, which he really was, but they didn't think he was, except in jest, spit on him, struck him, then took the robe off, put his own clothes on him, and led him away to be crucified. The way this happens in the text here, and the way we see it in John, it looks like it happened two different times, on two different occasions. We cannot begin to imagine the horror of that night, the horror of that night. May God give us grace to see with our spirit's eyes the depth that Jesus was brought to because of the depth of his love for us. In Luke 23. And here we begin a lot of back and forth again because everybody told something about this. We will not go much to Mark, but be ready to go to Luke and Matthew and John. We start with Luke 23, the actual death of Jesus, or the crucifixion anyway. And that's verse 26, and we will go to 32. And they led him away. And they made hold of a certain man named Simon. Simon was a Cyrenean. Cyrene was a city on the north coast of Africa. we would call that country Libya now. So that was up in the northern Africa, as far north as you could go in Africa. A city there. He was there for the Passover, of course. Coming from the country, it says. They lay the cross on him that he might bear it after Jesus. We don't know anything else about this, Simon. But may God make us Simons as we bear the cross of Jesus in our generation. A lot of people following Him here, people crying. He did have some friends in the crowd. It's important to see the daughters of Jerusalem were mourning and lamenting Him. They weren't all mocking and making fun and rejecting Him. Some women, some holy women in Jerusalem, and Jesus has a word for them. He always has a word for His own. Daughters, don't weep for me. Weep for yourselves and your children because horrible times are coming to this city and this area. They'll be saying, blessed are the barren someday. People that never had a child will be so happy when they see all the children and all the things that they have to go through, the suffering that's going to happen. They'll be calling for the mountains to fall and the hills to cover them. And then verse 31, if they do these things in the green wood, what will be done in the dry? I'm not sure how to go with that. I wonder if it has to do with the horrible things that are coming to Jerusalem even when Jerusalem is comparatively young in A.D. 70. Now it's been going another 2,000 years and we see that the ultimate fulfillment of the destruction and punishment of Jerusalem has not come. And what's it going to be like then? when the wood is dry, when it's ripe for judgment all over this planet. It says there were a couple other guys who were criminals. Criminals put to death with him. Do you see, again, the shame that Jesus is being led to here? The horror. And I can't paint this picture any worse than it is. Only ask that God will open our eyes to see it. and give us grace to repent because of it. Back to Matthew 27. Matthew 27, verses 33 and 34. When they come to a place called Golgotha, the place of a skull. Golgotha, the place of a skull. It was a place of human execution, this Golgotha. And so there were probably skulls laying around. It was the place over the hill where they had a huge refuse dump, and the smell from the burning of human flesh would waft up the hill, up into the noses of the prisoners as they were on the crosses, and it was a horrible place to be. That part of it, we might understand it that way, or else, or in addition to that, if you could look from a distance, to this hill called Golgotha, or Calvary. You would see caves in the places at the top of the hill, and a cave toward the bottom, and it looked actually like a human skull from a distance. This was a place to be avoided. But Jesus was there, outside the city, outside the camp, outside. It seemed the grace of God. He wasn't. but it seemed that way on that horrible day. It's going to seem that way for you someday, perhaps. Everything's going to go wrong, and it's going to seem like you're not in the grace of God. And in those days, you reach out to God with as much as you are able to reach out, and He'll hear you, and He'll deliver you, as He delivered His own Son. Although His own Son was indeed set aside for a while, it pleased the Lord to bruise Him we are told, in Isaiah. And they gave him sour wine. It's called vinegar, and the old King James mingled with gall to drink. It was a bitter, poisonous drug. When Jesus tasted a little bit of it, he decided he would not drink it, because if he had drunk it, I'm not sure that it looks like he might have had an earlier death than he did. and he would not have been lifted up. He might have died right there because he was already bleeding and suffering, but he had said, and the Bible had said in the Old Testament that he would be lifted up. He had to be crucified. He had to go on the cross. He had to be raised up above men to draw all men to him. He couldn't die then, and he couldn't drug himself to be comforted at that time. It wasn't the plan of God. He desired, he decided, to suffer. Jesus laid down His own life. It was Jesus calling all the shots here, even though it looked like the world had rejected Him. He was offering Himself, and He offered Himself fully right here. He wouldn't take the drug to take away the pain. Oh God! Oh God! When we get a headache, we rush for the medicine cabinet. Whatever happens that's painful, we just automatically don't want it. And that's natural. And I don't believe that's to be condemned. But Jesus said, no, I won't do this. I won't do this. For us, he tasted the bitterness of pain and not the gall. We go to Luke again. In Luke 23, verses 33 and 34. It says again, when they had come to Calvary, they crucified Him and the criminals. And the criminals were one on the right and one on the left. That's the detail that Luke gives us. That Jesus was indeed in the middle, as you see in all the pictures. Some say that was the worst place. That was the place where the worst criminal was. I don't know that that's true. But He was in the very center of the attention of that world and of our world still. Oh, if they had known, if Satan had known that he would be allowing Jesus to be raised up for the center of all people's attention, he would not have done this. Jesus said to begin with, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. And it says they divided his garments and cast lots. We'll talk about that in a minute. In fact, let's talk about it now in John chapter 19 as they've stripped him down fully He left his clothes lying at the bottom. Something has to be done with the clothes. 1923. It says the soldiers, when they crucified him, took his garments and made four parts. Perhaps different items of clothing that he had on. They just divided it four ways. But then also it says the tunic. It was a beautiful tunic. And they did not want to rip it up And the other things, perhaps they were. We don't know exactly how it was divided, but when they came to the tunic, they weren't going to rip it up and give it to one for whatever purpose. They wanted this tunic to be whole. And because of that, they threw dice to see who would win this tunic. One of the soldiers got to take it with him. And they didn't know what they were doing. They were doing what came natural to crusty man of the earth. But what they were doing was fulfilling Psalm 22, verse 18, they divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots. This was seen by the psalmist 1,000 years before it happened. God knew that this is what would happen on that hillside and that day, and He told the psalmist about it. We know the news well in advance. Still in John 19, we're actually backing up because there's a difference in order in the different Gospels and in the other places these kind of things seem to be coming first and so they've mixed it up in John. It's alright, it doesn't really matter which came first or second, we're just trying to get it all in, in the general time that it happens so you have the full effect of it. John 19, 19-22, Pilate now wrote a title, and put the title on the cross. And he put it up there in three languages, and it said, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. He put it in the Hebrew tongue. He put it in the Greek tongue. He put it in the Latin tongue. And so the Romanists could read it, and the people who had become educated could read it, and the Hebrews could read it, anybody who wanted to. anybody that could read could see this is the king of the Jews and of course the Jews didn't like Pilate saying that and they asked him not to do that but to just put up there that he said that well he's not going to put all that stuff on that one little sign and he's He's tired of this whole mess anyway. Do you think Pilate believed that Jesus was the King of the Jews by now? Or was he just using sarcasm against Jesus? Or was he trying to come against the Jews and just to harass them in some way? We don't know, do we? And what we don't know, we don't talk about a whole lot. But indeed, we will just say with Pilate, what he wrote, he wrote. And we're glad that somehow, He was inspired to write that because it was the absolute truth. And not just the King of the Jews, but the King of the world. Thank God we will see it fully someday. Matthew 27. Please go back to Matthew 27 and go down to verse 39. Jesus is now hanging on the cross. He's there. This is, it seems, where his life was headed. all along, although we believe it's the empty tomb and the salvation of man and the Holy Spirit and so on. But this is the centerpiece of his life. He came to die. He did not come to be important and to have a long, successful, comfortable ministry. He came to die and he sends his men out to die. None of us are important in that way. None of us need to be here that long. He calls us to death. He calls us to follow Him. To die to ourselves? Yes, we like to talk about it. That's all it means to some, dying to ourselves, which is true. But actual death can be in the works also. And saying, people came by blaspheming Him. People started it up now. They're wagging their heads and saying, He says you're going to destroy the temple. Well, listen. You're the Son of God. Now, who said that? Satan said that, remember? In the temptation in the wilderness, Matthew 4, verses 3 and 6. If you're the Son of God, do this. If you're the Son of God, do that. And they're just picking up where Satan left off and really where Satan never stopped. If you're the Son of God, come down from the cross. Looking for a sign. We're not going to believe on the basis of what you just told us. Even all the miracles, the works, we're not going to believe. We want a sign. It may not mean all that much to anybody, but we want it. Now, the signs God wants to give, yes, the miracles He gives should serve as signs. The answered prayers should serve as a sign, but we're not to ask for a sign per se. When you ask for that healing, be sure that you're asking out of compassion for that person and not for a sign, not because you really don't believe. pray out of faith, not to get faith. And they're just asking God to work some kind of a miracle here so they can believe. And no, no. We believe on the basis of the Word of God, or we don't believe at all. We take it by faith, not by sight. Religious people are coming by now and they're saying, He saved others. Finally, they admit it. They admit it that He was saving others. Thank you, Lord. But himself he cannot save, if he is the king of Israel. There it is again. The expression of doubt. No ifs in your prayers. No maybes in your prayers. Please, pray in faith about who he is and what he wants to do for you. If he is the king of Israel, let him come down. He trusted in God. They admit that in verse 43. They admit it. He trusted in God. Let God deliver him, if he is really the son of God. No faith in that whole bunch of people that just passed by. Let's go back over to Luke and pick up something else. Luke 23, 39. Luke 23, 39. One moment, please. Let's catch our breath here. Luke 23, 39. Then one of the criminals hanged with him, also began to blaspheme. The word blaspheme meaning just to speak against. The blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is the speaking against, the continual, forever speaking against the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes in and says, you need Jesus, and you speak against that. And you'll never, ever be forgiven for speaking against the Holy Ghost. And they're speaking against Jesus in here. And again, they're saying, if you're the Christ, if you're the Christ, save yourself and us. I'm sorry, this is just one of these men on one side of Jesus. You're the Christ. He has the same doubt, skepticism that the crowd has. But the other man didn't buy it. There was some faith in Israel. God always has his people. Here was a thief, a criminal. Thank God, a prisoner. He's like the men that I visit all the time in the Cook County Jail. Thank God for them. They're prisoners, and they're down at the bottom, and they know where to look. They look up. And that's where they see Jesus. And they find Him. Yes, they do. This man is doing it. Now, not everybody that's in jail sees Jesus. And not everybody hanging on a cross, even in great, horrible pain, sees Jesus. This man is all filled with himself. Blasphemes Christ. Wants to blame Christ for it. Hey, you can get us out of this. If you're some big God, do something! No, no, no. No, the other man says, wait a minute. Don't you fear God? Don't you understand we're going to die in just a moment? Don't you understand what this man's been trying to tell us? And don't you understand that we're guilty? We did something wrong. But this man, you're blaspheming. He never did anything wrong. Don't you understand?" And he realizes, as he's speaking, that the Word of Faith has touched him. What is that Word of Faith? The Word of Faith that touches a man's heart. It goes to his heart. With the heart man believes, and with the mouth confession is made. Why, he's just confessed his faith in this Jesus Christ. He doesn't know his theology yet. He doesn't understand a whole lot, but he seems to believe that there's a kingdom. Therefore, he believes in the resurrection, in Jesus' own resurrection, he must. And that's the requirement, isn't it? When the Holy Spirit has put faith in your heart that Jesus has been raised from the dead, and you confess that with your mouth, you are a saved man. And this is a saved man here. He believes in the resurrection from the dead, and he's calling out to God. God. Jesus. Lord, when you come into your kingdom, don't forget me. Ah, God, what a wonderful moment here. Jesus says, I won't forget you. In fact, this very day, this very day when the suffering is over, when the pain is done, it won't be long now, my friend. Just hang on. You're going to be with me where I am in paradise. In paradise. We'll be together." And the man was comforted. And the man decided he could make it. The man decided to hang on, and he's with Jesus this very moment. As I speak to you right now, that man is with Jesus. The other, probably not. Well, that was John. Now, that was Luke 19. Well, I seem to have lost my place. There it is. We're in John 19. John 19. John 19, verses 25 to 27. Some other events happening at the cross right about this same time. There's His mother. We don't hear much about His mother, thank God, and I know she was a wonderful, wonderful woman. How I want to meet her, find out who she really was, because we get a lot of things about her these days that aren't true. that are copied after the Queen of Heaven myth out of Babylon. Oh, God have mercy upon us. And on his so-called church, his professing church. But here's the real woman. And she's standing there. And not only that, there's his mother's sister, Mary, the wife of Cleopas. And Mary Magdalene. There are three Marys standing there. And John is standing there, too, according to verse 26. And Jesus nods to his mother Mary and says, Behold your son. He wasn't saying, Look at me. She was already looking at him. She was saying, I want you to look over there. Right next to you is your new son. And to John, he says, I want you to behold your mother. And John knew right away. He knew. There was no question in his mind what that meant. It says, From that hour, that disciple, John, the one that's writing this very book, took Mary to his own home. Why? because now it's not going to be safe at Jesus' home. I'm speculating that the brothers don't believe. There could be some serious problems there just in the family. More than that, they're going to be coming to Mary's house perhaps. The Jews may be coming after her as well as the rest of the disciples. And John needs to take her to a place where they can hide together. And he does that. He cares for her. You don't even see him early at the resurrection as well as all the other disciples and Mary's not there either at the beginning. The next time we'll see her will be on the day of Pentecost. The Mary that takes center stage at the resurrection will be Mary Magdalene. You'll see that in just a little while. Go back to Matthew. Matthew 27, verses 45-47. It's the 6th hour, which means 12 noon, until the 9th hour, which is 3pm. And from that time, it says, there was darkness over all the land. An eclipse where God was letting people know that even the creation rebelled against this whole idea. God Himself was withdrawing His His visible, audible, sensible presence from His Son. And Jesus is beginning to cry out in verse 46, Why have you forsaken Me? These two things go together. The Son goes out and the Father in Heaven seems to just be so distant. Oh, He's grieving, of course, over His Son, but He has to withdraw. And the Son feels, God, why? Why? Why? And he's calling out in the Hebrew tongue, Eli, Eli, which sounds a whole lot like the name for Elijah in the Hebrew. And they thought he was calling for Elijah himself, Elijah who never died, who went up in a whirlwind up into heaven. And maybe he was calling out for the prophet, they thought. wanted to stop those that were trying to comfort Jesus because they said, wait a minute, don't help Him. Maybe this Elijah will really come. Let's see. They were looking for a spectacle. They didn't care about Him at all. And that takes us over to John 19. In John 19, verses 28-30, Jesus now realizes it's finished. It's all over. He knows that he's done everything that the Father wanted him to do. The script has just been read to the final curtain call. This is it. This is it. I did it. I really did it all. I'm done. And knowing that, he says, I thirst. I thirst." Now, he could have had something to drink earlier that would have kept him from all this horrible suffering and all the mockery and all the shame. He could have had that. But he didn't. He took all that he was supposed to take. He did it all for us. And then to fulfill even more what the Scripture says, and my footnote refers you back to Psalm 22.15, the great thirst that the psalmist was feeling at that moment. turns out to be, in spirit, the thirst of Jesus himself. And to fulfill that scripture, too, he calls out, I thirst. I'm very thirsty. My tongue is clinging to the top of my mouth. I've got to have something to drink. And there was that same vinegar. Did this have gall in it, too? Did this have that drug in it, too? I don't know. It just said sour wine. They filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on his sip, and put it to his mouth. Some would like to say that maybe he just drugged himself here and allowed the poison to take its place because his time was finished. Others would say, no, there was no gall in there at all. It's just sour wine. And all this means is that he fulfilled prophecy perfectly. He wouldn't even allow himself to die until he had fulfilled Psalm 22 in every way. Because when he received that, he said, it's finished. That's it. That's all I was supposed to do. And he deliberately gave up his spirit. He just gave it up. Death? Can we say death took him? Or did he yield himself to death? He gave up. That's the biblical way to say that. He gave up his spirit. He just breathed his last deliberate breath. He said, that's it, I'm done. I now die. So in one sense, the Romans didn't kill him. In one sense, the Jews didn't kill him. In one sense, I killed him, and you killed him. It was sin that did this, and sin that allowed him. Of course, all these things that were happening to him were real, and the people who did this thing were actually guilty. But there was a sense about it all that Jesus was just laying his own life down, and even chose the moment of his death. He had to die then, by the way, because in just a little while the Roman soldiers were going to be coming to all three prisoners. Anybody that was still alive would have their legs broken. You can call it mercy if you want, but a little bit of hastening, I think, a little bit of impatience. Go ahead and die, fella. When they broke the legs, that sent a major shock throughout the whole system, and that man would die very soon. Well, Jesus couldn't have his legs broken because then he would not be the perfect Lamb of God. The Bible says about the Lamb of God, not one of his bones shall be broken. That's down in verse 36. And it says in another scripture, they shall look on him whom they have pierced. What's that about? Well, back in verse 33, when they saw he was already dead, they didn't break his legs. That would take a lot of extra work and he was already dead. But one of the soldiers, for one reason or another, perhaps just to be sure, takes a javelin and throws it up into Jesus' side, and blood and water came out. They say there is a sack of water that surrounds the heart, and when a person has died of stress or a whole lot of horrible things inside of a man, that that water sack is broken and it comes out, that's a sign of death immediately. When that sack is broken, you are for sure dead. And John in verse 35 wants you to know that he saw the blood and he saw the water coming out. Both of these things, blood and water, testimony, testimony liquid, all the way through Scripture you'll see these kind of things with blood and water, blood and water as testimonies to something that's already happened. He is dead, and the blood is now a testimony. He is dead, and the water is now a testimony. When you get saved, when Christ comes into your heart, you accept the blood of Jesus that was shed for you, and you go to the waters of baptism right away. Both of these signs that God has saved you and made you right with Him. The story of verses 38 to 40 actually continue this train of thought, but in a different angle from the man to the man who actually came, who was a secret disciple of Jesus. He's talked about here, and he's talked about in Luke. And I want to take you to Luke in just a minute. But Joseph of Arimathea, and Arimathea is a city that's northwest of Jerusalem. He was, as I say, a secret disciple. wants to take the body away and Pilate gives him permission. He's probably glad to be rid of this whole thing. He has a companion working with him named Nicodemus. You know Nicodemus from John chapter 3. Also a secret disciple. He came to Jesus by night and he's probably coming by night now. He's coming secretly now anyway. And he's got some aloes ready somewhere, and they actually are going to do to him, it looks like, what they did to the mummies of Egypt. I think perhaps the Jews learned this while in Egypt, and passed this kind of thing down, where they take these strips of linen. That's what it says. They bound the body of Jesus in strips of linen with spices. So he was really very securely bound in there. And I think it's important that you understand that. Okay, that's enough there. Now we need to go to Matthew 27, just a minute. We'll come back to John much later. Matthew 27, 61. It says Mary Magdalene was there. Well, do I want 27, 60? Yeah, 27, 60 and 61. Yeah. It says they laid it in his new tomb, verse 60, that he had hewn out of the rock. That was the tomb maybe he was going to use for himself eventually, that someone was going to use for him. It was a new thing. It was a new purchase. But he realized, oh, the reason I did this, no doubt, was for this. This is a much more important purpose. And he rolled a large stone against the door of the tomb and departed. And it says that Mary Magdalene was there, and the other Mary, Remember, Jesus' mother is with John, so the mother Mary would be the mother of a person named Joseph and a person named James. They were all sitting there opposite the tomb. They watched Jesus be buried. It's important that we see this too. We have eyewitnesses of his death, eyewitnesses of his burial. and those same witnesses of his resurrection. It was the ladies that he was seen last by in a dead form and the ladies that he was seen first by very soon after that. It's important that you see that whole picture. Then we can go over to Luke. I want to give that A little more of a profile on Arimathea, Joseph that is. Luke 23 verse 50 says he was a council member. A member of the council which means Nicodemus and he served together. He was a good man and a just man. God letting us know here that not all of Israel was wicked. There's always that remnant. He had not consented to their counsel. He voted it down, but they didn't listen to him. Perhaps they had majority rule, and as long as more people believed in it and could talk more forcefully about it, it must be the truth. There is a weakness in democracy, you see. He was from Arimathea, a city of the Jews, who himself was also waiting waiting for the Kingdom of God. All the good Jews were waiting for the Messianic reign of Christ. But good Jew or bad Jew, if you were waiting for the Messiah, He's already come and gone now. And this man seems to sense it, that this was the one waiting for the Kingdom of God. Like the thief on the cross, he was tuned in to Jesus by the Holy Spirit, I believe. We go over to Matthew 27 now. back to Matthew 27, verses 62 to 66, the next day, which followed the day of preparation. We had that day before. Now it's the very next day. It looks like the Sabbath. The chief priests and pharisees are going over to Pilate again. Boy, they're sure using this man now. They've made friends, it seems, with the world quite a bit to get their purposes done. Verse 63, they said, We remember that When he was here, he talked about the third day. Now, you know his disciples couldn't even remember that. They didn't seem to get it together. Jesus said, fools and slow of heart to believe all that the Scriptures have said about me. And the third day, Jesus had said it, but they had forgotten. But somehow, these Jews, these unbelieving Jews remembered. I believe that's from the Holy Spirit, too. You see, this had to be brought to their mind so they would make that tomb secure. And when you make the tomb secure and there's still a resurrection, then you know that God did it. Thank God that we are allowed sometimes to be pushed into a corner so that when something good is going to happen, it's going to happen from God and not from men. So that's the story of the sealing of the guard Verse 62 through 66, and we were reading 63, 64. So Pilate, we don't want this man to deceive. We don't want to let him out of the tomb somehow, and then him going around saying he's raised from the dead. So verse 65, he said, all right, you've got a guard. I'll release a guard to you. You go your way, and you make that thing secure the best way you know how. So they did. They made the tomb secure and they sealed it, set the guard, and there was now no excuse for a resurrected Jesus except the power of God. It had to be the power of God. We enter now into the last 40 days of Jesus' existence on earth. Yes, he's still going to be here another 40 days, but really we don't know about too many of those days. except for this special one that's coming up right now. And let's don't call it Easter anymore. Easter is named after Ishtar, that pagan goddess of Babylon. And we're not into Ishtar. That holiday was named after her, and we don't want anything to do with a name like that. We believe in the resurrection day of Jesus Christ, but not in Ishtar anymore. Well, we're going to have to be, as always, traveling back and forth a bit. But I decided on this one to slow the pace down a little bit. And I want to let you know that there are some difficulties in piecing all this together. And because of these difficulties, I'd like to just read all that Matthew said, and all that Mark said, and all that Luke said. about the resurrection. I'll try to point out a couple differences as we go along rather than back and forth and back and forth, which you would have to do to get it in perfect order. But let's get the general sense of all these three accounts. We'll start with Matthew. In Matthew 28, in fact, that's the order that's given here in the harmony. The things that happen in Matthew seem to be happening a little bit before the others and so on. Matthew 28, just the first four verses. It's after the Sabbath, we know that. It's the first day of the week. We know that. And Mary Magdalene, and again that other Mary here, she's called the mother of James instead of the mother of Joseph, so obviously the mother of James and Joseph. Also, and Mark mentions that Salome is there, I'll tell you that much now. So there are several women, and could have been others also. He talks about several women later on that are unnamed, so a bunch of women come. And they have a purpose in mind of blessing Jesus in some way. But now, the camera switches away from the women. I want you to understand here that we're not talking about the women. The women are not in view at this point. The action switches to the tomb. Right before they get there, I don't know how long before, maybe just before they get there, they might have felt the aftershock, that there's a great earthquake. There was a lot of stuff going on in Israel in those days. And here's one of them, and we just passed right over this, as though it didn't happen, but it did happen. A major earthquake. Great one, it says. Why? Because an angel of the Lord descended from heaven. Whenever that kind of power comes into our sphere, there's going to be a shake-up, and there was. And he came and rolled back the stone from the door. and sat on it. Now the angel didn't bring Jesus from the dead. God raised him from the dead. Evidently Jesus is in there right now changing his garments, getting all those things off of him. He's been totally wrapped up like a mummy with strips of linen all over his body and all that's just coming off and his new vestments are upon him. And it says, the angel's countenance was like lightning, his clothing as white as snow, and the guards shook for fear of him. He became like dead men. It was an incredible scene. An incredible scene that took place on that day. Now, the first four verses will be enough from Matthew. We're going to get the rest of the account from Mark and Luke. Let's go to Mark 16. which seems to be next in the order of events. Mark 16, 1, and let's go through 8. Again, the Sabbath has passed. It tells you the women who have come. Verse 2, very early in the morning. Now, you don't hear anything here about an earthquake. You don't need to. We've already established that before they got to the tomb, here's what they were saying. And by the way, in verse 2, it's very early. And they're saying in verse 3, who's going to rule away this stone? You see, the earthquake either hasn't happened yet, or they're not aware of it yet. They're not quite there. And then the earthquake comes. When they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away. For it was very large, and they were worried about that. But it had been rolled away. And Mark wants you to know, it was very large. It wasn't rolled away by human hands. And the guards had become like dead men when they saw this angel. I mean, the guards are not a factor in this thing anymore. And they actually just walked right into the tomb, these bold women did. Bolder than the Apostle John, the young man. These are older, more mature women, maybe, than John was at that time. He's just a young man. But when they go inside, they see what looked like a young man. And Mark called him a young man here. Now, in Luke, you'll see that there were two, but it was one that did the talking and one that had the focus here of Mark. Mark's just focusing it on one. There was another one there, but he doesn't mention him. And this particular young man was sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed when they see this angel. He says, don't be afraid. You know how angels are. I don't know. Well, I'll just go with what it says. Don't be afraid. You see Jesus. He was crucified, right? But He's risen. He's risen. So the first messenger of the Gospel was a messenger. That's what angelos, angel, means. He was the first messenger of the good news. The angel of God. But it wasn't long before people caught it and began spreading it everywhere. He's risen. He's not here. Look where they lay Him. Verse 7. First, go tell His disciples and Peter. Don't forget Peter. The one that denied Jesus. The one that is so broken in heart and so sorry that he failed Jesus in his hour of need. So hurting right now. His best friend is dead. Go tell Peter this. Go tell Peter. Go tell the disciples that Jesus is going to meet you over in Galilee. You're going to see Him there. Just like He said. Just like He said. They went out quickly. and fled from the tomb. And they were trembling and they were amazed. Did they believe it? I think they did. They were very sensitive. They had been at the tomb not long before. And they had seen Him go in there. They had seen that thing sealed up. They knew something unusual had happened. They had seen already more than the disciples had seen by that moment. And they run away. Well, let's go to Luke then to finish this up. In Luke 24 we get the rest of the story. Luke 24, verses 3 through 11. It says, they went in and they didn't find the body. And they see two men, verse 5, they bow their faces to the earth. And another thing that the angel said was, why are you looking for living people where the dead are? He's not here. He's really risen. Don't you remember how he spoke to you? When he was still in Galilee, you can look up Luke 9.22 as a reference to that. Well, I'll do that for you right now. Luke 9.22 is the reference given. The Son of Man must suffer many things, be rejected by the elders and chief priests, be killed, and be raised the third day. He had already told them. And the angels just reminding them that they've already been told. And they remembered His words. They remembered. And that's what the Holy Spirit's going to be doing all down through history, is bringing to people's minds the words of Jesus. He brought, especially to the apostles in that day, all the words that they needed to write down for us. And I'm so glad that they did. Well, verse 9, they left the tomb and they went to the 11, and to all the rest. I mean, there were more than 11 disciples, you know, but the 11 in particular. And then it tells you who these women were again, and now it adds Joanna's name, and a bunch, it says, and the other women with them, who told these things to the apostles. But when they got there and said all these things to them, it seemed like they were just making up stories. And they did not believe. They did not believe. After all that Jesus had told them. You see, it hadn't come back to their mind yet. The angel had to jog the memory of these women, but God has not done that yet for the apostles. So we go one more resurrection story in John 20. John 20, verses 3-10. Peter, therefore... Now, we've got the women in the first couple of verses here. Might as well talk about that also. Why not say it again? First day of the week, here's Mary Magdalene. She sees the stone's been taken away, and she comes and tells Simon, Peter, and John, and tells them, they've taken away the Lord out of the tomb. We don't know where they've laid him. So she was the first human messenger of this whole thing. The other women were involved at another time in a separate way, but it's Mary Magdalene now is coming back, telling Peter and John in particular, Is this just a little focus of the bigger story being told again? We don't know. Is it a separate story? We don't know. But it could be a part of what we just already read three times. Because they do go right back, as she does, go right back to the apostles. And Peter and John start running. And it says, they were going to the tomb and they ran together for a while. Finally, John kicked it into high gear. Kicked it up a notch, you know, and he gets there first. He's panting, but he wanted to be there first, but he wasn't bold enough. He came to the tomb first, and he stooped down, and he looked in, and he saw all the little pieces of linen cloth, all those little strips that Joseph and Nicodemus had painstakingly wrapped around the body of Jesus. He saw all those things. Yet they didn't go in, he didn't go in. Finally here comes Simon Peter chugging along and he gets there and finally somebody goes in and the women have already been in there and seen all this, didn't touch anything, didn't bother anything. Peter goes right on in. He doesn't care about anything. He's just moving right into the tomb. John seemed to be afraid for some reason to go into the tomb. and saw the linen cloths, as we just mentioned, both of them saw that, and then this face cloth, verse 7, we'll call it a handkerchief, it was a face cloth that had been around his head, that had been part of the wrapping. It wasn't lying with the linen cloths. It was folded together in a place by itself. Any significance there? I'll leave that with you. Why? was the head cloth separate from the body cloths. Does it matter? Is there a significance that John brings that up? I've not seen anything authoritative about that. I hear little bits of this and that, but I'll let you study that. Folded together in a place where the folded part certainly has given rise to many comments. Neatly, carefully folded and set apart Interesting, don't you think? That Jesus would take that kind of care as He's being raised from the dead, but He's not in the tomb. He's got His new clothes on now, but He's not left a mess behind. Verse 8, John finally comes in and he saw and he believed. And this is what he wrote the Gospel for. He wanted you to see what he saw. That's what witnesses do. If you haven't seen anything, don't call yourself a witness. Experience the living Christ in your heart and what you can do in your life. Don't tell others about it because you're not a witness yet. You must experience it before you can tell others. For as yet, verse 9, they did not know, we have to say understand, the Scripture that He must rise again from the dead. Because they didn't know it in their head, they heard it. Even the angels reminded, don't you remember what He told you when He was in Galilee? but they didn't comprehend it yet. It hadn't become a part of them that he would really rise from the dead. And when they talked about the third day, maybe they were thinking in the resurrection. That was just a code term for the general resurrection, because they did believe in that. Well, then the disciples went away to their own homes. Now we enter into that phase of Jesus' life that we refer to as the appearances. He's resurrected, and who can explain and describe for you what that body would have looked like? We know for sure that we are going to be like Him as He is. We'll have a new body also. We're going to see Him eat, but we're going to see Him walk through walls. We're going to see miraculous manifestation. We're not going to see limitation anymore, except as much as is necessary to deal with these men who are still in their regular bodies. And He's going to become one of them to a degree. But for the most part, you're seeing a glorified, empowered Christ now. The King, not the suffering servant. That's finished now. He's the glorified King. They are seeing Him as we will see Him in great power. Although He had to tone it down even then a little bit for their sake. Because they did recognize Him and yet, There were times when they didn't recognize Him. This is all very mysterious as we enter this resurrection material because it's outside of our experience. We're not used to this sort of thing. Let's go to His appearance first to Mary Magdalene. Mark 16, verse 9. When He arose early in the first day of the week, first to Mary Magdalene. Was she a prostitute? I'm not sure where this thing arose. Was she the woman that was at the house of Simon? We're not told that. All of that is speculation. Here's what we know about Mary, that out of this Mary, Jesus did cast seven devils. That's her identification. And let's don't romanticize her and make her something that we don't really know she was. I mean, it doesn't hurt our theology, it doesn't change our life, I guess, but I don't like people who toy with scripture in this way and I don't want to be one. who toys with it either. There is only speculation about who she really was in the rest of Scripture. Let's go with what is written. Out of this Mary Magdalene, he had cast seven demons. That we know. Let's find out what else God wants to tell us in John chapter 20, verses 11-18. This Mary Magdalene, even after Peter and John have come back into the tomb, and they've seen, and they've witnessed, and they've done all this. They're gone, but Mary's lingering. Mary's there too. She comes back with them, and she stands outside the tomb when they're gone. Because Jesus is in the vicinity, you see. He's there somewhere, but she wants to see Him, and she doesn't know that He's in the vicinity. And she's crying, looking into the tomb, and she sees two angels. Is this The same general incident that we've already studied with the women, or really is this a later incident? It doesn't matter that much. This incident did happen. The chronology of it, I'm sorry, I'll have to just leave with the scholars right now. She saw two angels, one sitting at the head, one sitting at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain before. So they're covering the space where he was. And they said to her, why are you crying? They've taken away the Lord, she said. I don't know where they've laid him. I came here to just be with him and to maybe anoint his body or whatever I could do, but he's gone. And they said to her, okay. And then she turned around. Verse 14. You see, when the human heart is crying out for Jesus, Jesus will be there. Amen? Jesus will be there when your heart is crying out for him and you miss him and you want him. He'll be there. You might not recognize him at first, as she didn't, but he'll be there. Call on the name of the Lord. You'll be delivered from that situation. She turns around and she sees Jesus, but she doesn't know it's Jesus. Verse 15. Jesus asked the same question that the angels asked. Why are you crying? Who are you looking for? Oh, she says, and she thinks it's the gardener. The guy that manages the grounds. Oh, sir, if you've carried him somewhere, are you the one that took him out of here? I don't know what's going on. Just tell me where you've laid him, because I want to take him away myself. I want to put him where he belongs. What was she going to do? We don't know. What did she have in mind to do with the body of Jesus? This dear woman just wanted to do what she could. Suddenly, Jesus calls her by name, Mary. A little gardener knew her name. The gardeners of Judea did not know Mary's name. She looked up when she heard her name called and recognized him. As she looked into his face, she said, I know you. Rabboni, teacher, master." And she's just about to go grab him, and hold him, and he says, no, don't cling to me. Now, in the Old King James it says, don't touch me. And some, again, this is speculation. We don't have a clear word from God on it. So, let's just call it speculation that when he said, don't touch me, because I haven't yet ascended to my father, but I have to go to my brothers, something to do with him going to heaven, they say? And he had not been properly accepted into heaven? And the blood had not been shed? I don't know. There were things that he had to do in heaven. He had to make an appearance in heaven. And he did not want to be defiled by human hands at that moment. Later on, after he had done it, he came back down. Well, that's a lot of speculation, I think, because We just don't have that record anywhere. It seems more like the New King James Bible says, and I think it's a better word for modern Americans and English-speaking people, don't cling to me. Don't cling to me. Don't hold on to me. Don't hold me because I still have some things to do. I can't stay here with you long. I was just right now on my way to see the brothers. I've got to be with them right now. But tell you what you could do, Mary, for me. You go to them. You go to them for me, and you tell them, I'm on my way to my father. I'm going to be ascending to him. I'm going to God. Tell him that for me. Now, he didn't set up a meeting date with him through that, but he lets them know that the ascension is coming soon. I believe there was only one ascension. I can't prove that. And I don't think that it's going to matter to anyone's theology which way we go with that. But I believe He only ascended once. Well, Mary Magdalene did go and tell the disciples that He had spoken these things to her. And the next day, actually the same day, we're in verse 19. That night, they're all gathered together. The doors are all shut. They're all assembled there. They're very, very worried. They know they are apostles and could be next in line as being followers of this Jesus. Jesus suddenly just stands right there and says, peace, peace. So how do you have peace when you see what looks like a ghost? And he goes around, he shows them his hands, his side, and finally, finally they're glad. Finally they realize, yes, this is Jesus. I should have stopped there at verse 18. I think I will stop there altogether right now. 18 is the end of that story with Mary Magdalene, and we want to do one more story with her in Mark 16, 11. Maybe we could put that in real quick. It looks like we'll have to do our questions, though, the next time. It says, when they heard that He was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe. They're not going to believe until that incident that I just gave you in verses 19 and 20. Let's get some questions in before I leave today. Was all the crowd hostile to Jesus, number 30? No, there were a large number of female mourners. What was Pilate's last way of attempting to favor Jesus? Called him the King of the Jews. Number 32, what did the religious crowd finally admit when Jesus was on the cross? Well, he saved others. Number 33, what would be one of John's duties from this day on? To take care of Mary. 34, read again Psalm 22. Who first felt forsaken of God? That was David. And what put Jesus in the same situation? That was our sin. 35, what did the tearing of the curtain mean? That the way to God is open. Why does John make a point that blood and water came, that he was actually dead? That's what it meant. 37. Name the two secret disciples and explain why they came forward now. That's Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, and it was to bury him. What was the Pharisees' fear now? Why was it illogical? Well, that the disciples would come and steal the body. But would these disciples come and go to promote a lie? Would they risk their lives to promote a lie the rest of their lives? 39. What needless concern did the ladies have as they approached the tomb? Who's going to roll the stone away? Number 40. Why does it say his disciples and Peter? Well, he was the chosen leader, but he had denied Jesus three times. This is a reaffirmation. 41. What do we learn about the different natures of Peter and John? Well, John was younger, stronger. Peter was a leader. John was a follower. 42. How was Jesus resurrected body different. I think with that, we will stop. I'm sorry I ran over just a little bit today. It has been good to share this miracle of miracles with you. These wonderful things that are ours as believers. May God bless you this day.