If you're not already there, would you please join with me in Acts chapter two? Acts chapter two. Today we are celebrating the foundational truth of the Christian faith, which is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If the resurrection of Jesus Christ is not true, then Christianity is empty and worthless. There are many people who would beg to differ with that. They would say that there's wonderful teaching, that there's wonderful instruction, that there's a wonderful character development within teaching and it develops a sense of community. They would cite all of these things. And well, that may be true. The fact is, if our Savior, which is at the very core of what we believe, did not rise from the dead, then our gathering here today is truly a waste of time. This is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. The resurrection of Jesus Christ has been attacked as nonsense. from the very first Resurrection Sunday. We read in Matthew 28 that guards were paid to say that the disciples stole his body. And Matthew writing decades later says that this story was still commonly reported among the Jews. And over the centuries, there have been many theories proposed to explain away the resurrection of Christ. There's the swoon theory that said that Jesus was not truly dead and that when He was then in the cool of the tomb, He came back to Himself, regained consciousness, and He came out on the third day and people thought it was a resurrection, but it really wasn't. Others have said that simply the disciples came to the wrong tomb, and that's why it was empty. Of course, it doesn't explain why the angels were there when the ladies came, but that's a theory that some have proposed. Others have suggested that He conspired to drug Himself so that he appeared to be dead and then faked his own resurrection to fulfill the prophecies that he knew were in the Old Testament. That seems very, very far-fetched. Skeptics all begin their investigation of this truth with one presupposition, and that is that it's impossible that Jesus rose from the dead, and then they look for explanations of that. But in the very first Christian sermon that was ever preached in Acts chapter two, we find that actually it was impossible that he didn't rise from the dead. This is what Peter says in verse 24. Look with me, please. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death because it was not possible for him to be held by it. This is an amazing thing. He uses the analogy when he speaks of the pangs of death. It's the picture of a woman who is in labor, about to give birth. it's inevitable that that baby's going to be born. She can't decide, you know what, I've just decided this is too hard, I'm not going to give birth to this baby, I'm gonna go home. No, that baby's coming whether she's ready or not. That's the picture here. This should not be hard for us to understand here at Calvary Baptist Church, because we have babies born here all the time. In fact, I have heard it from a reliable source that at the very moment I know of 12 ladies who are with child in our church right now. You see, we are a growing church. This is an analogy of the inevitability of the resurrection of Christ from the dead. This text is found in the very first Christian sermon. Peter is preaching on the day of Pentecost. Pentecost means 50, 50 days after the Passover. And this was a major Jewish celebration. Thousands and thousands of Jews from all over the Mediterranean world would come to Jerusalem to celebrate this. And it's during this time that the Holy Spirit comes down and empowers the apostles to minister and to preach boldly. And this is exactly what Peter does. He gets up before this multi-ethnic congregation. He stands up and he addresses many thousands of people. They can't believe what's going on. They can't believe the power and the boldness that he has. And they suggest that maybe these men are drunk. And he says, no, we are not drunk. We are filled with the Spirit. And in verse 22, Peter really begins his sermon after some opening remarks. He says, men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst. As you yourselves know, this Jesus, Delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. This is an amazing thing. He's going to provide three reasons in this sermon why they should know for certainty that Jesus is their Messiah. Number one, because they have witnessed his miracles. The Old Testament prophesied that the Messiah would perform miracles like in Isaiah 35. And Jesus performed those miracles and these people, many of these people saw these miracles with their own eyes. Many of them saw it on multiple occasions. It was undoubtedly the work of God. The next evidence that Peter's gonna provide to show that he is the Messiah is his resurrection from the dead. And he's gonna show that this was prophesied in the Old Testament. And then the third evidence that indeed he is the Messiah is the fulfillment of Pentecost in that he comes down in great power, which they were seeing right before them through the ministry of these apostles. But embedded within this sermon where he's demonstrating the identity of the Messiah as Jesus of Nazareth, an historic person that they had seen, he's now going to show them the certainty of Jesus's resurrection, which is the main point he's getting across here. And he shows this in three different ways. How can we be certain that Jesus truly rose from the dead? Number one, we can be certain because Christ, because the resurrection of Christ was God's plan of redemption. Look with me at verse 23, please. This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. The same miracle-working God that it opened the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf and even raised people from death to life, who went about, as Peter says later in Acts chapter 10, doing good, the religious authorities conspired to murder. If ever it seemed like God was not in control, it was that Passover that year. But in fact, God was in control of that. Those men acted according to their own wicked hearts. They were envious and proud and they didn't wanna lose control and status from the people that this man from Nazareth was taking from them. And so they conspired to murder him, but God used their envy and their greed and their hatred to accomplish his divine purpose of redemption. They will answer to God for it. But they were fulfilling God's decree and crucifying Him. They were unknowingly fulfilling His great plan of redemption. And they thought that His death was the end. But it was not. We have this wonderful contrast in verse 23. It says that they killed him in verse 24, but God raised him up. God intervened. God raised up his son. Now what's interesting here is that Peter applies this personally to his crowd. He says something incredibly bold. He says, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. Obviously, they did not, not everyone in that crowd physically was part of his crucifixion. It was the Roman soldiers who did that. And neither were this crowd part of the religious leaders who conspired and put pressure on Pilate to bring this about. So why does he say that you crucified him? I would suggest to you because the same crowd that was there for Pentecost were the same people that were there at the Passover. And many of them were there when Jesus was hanging on a cross, and that busy thoroughfare going in and out of the city, and they hurled insults at him. There was a mob mentality. And when Pilate had his trial, Some of them undoubtedly thought I was part of the group that said, crucify him, crucify him. Yes, they were whipped up and led by the leaders, but they said that with their own words. It always reminds me of that song that we sing, ashamed I hear my mocking voice call out among the scoffers. And at the end of the sermon, in verse 37, we'll read that they were pricked to their hearts. I did say those things. I was part of that crowd. I did support the decision of the leaders. I did in some way have a part in crucifying the Son of God. What a powerful thought that was to them. This was the greatest miscarriage of justice in the history of humanity. but God was in control of it all because this was all part of his divine plan, but his plan didn't end with the death. It continued on with his resurrection. God raised him up. He's gonna say this again. You'll notice in the sermon in verse 32, he says, this Jesus God raised up and of that we are all witnesses. This is something we see in all the sermons in the book of Acts. The apostles emphasized the resurrection of Christ. And in our preaching, we probably don't focus on that enough. We serve a risen Savior. This is one of the truths, one of the doctrines that separates Christianity from every other religion in the world. Have you ever thought about that? The founder of every other religion is dead and made no claims to rise from the dead. But Jesus did. We serve a risen Savior. No less than nine times in the book of Acts do we read of God the Father raising Jesus from the dead. I wanna say something that I think I say just about every Easter, but the significance in your New Testament, there are one or two passages that speak of Jesus rising from the dead himself and being active in it. And the significance of that is that Jesus triumphed over death and he confirmed his divine identity as the son of God. Because on ten occasions he said to his disciples that he would rise again. If he didn't rise again, then he's not who he claimed to be. But he did rise from the dead. He did demonstrate that indeed he is the Son of God and he's worthy of our trust. But most often we read, like we read in our text today, that God raised him from the dead. And in this tense, Christ is passive. The Father raised him from the dead. They're both true. But what's the significance of that? The significance of this is very personal for all of us. It means that God the Father had received his sacrifice for our sin. You see, if he did not raise up his beloved son, it would mean that he did not receive his sacrifice for our sin on the cross and every single one of us here and everyone who has ever lived would be doomed. There would be no savior, there would be no atoning sacrifice that was received for our sin. But the fact that He was raised up, the Father raised Him up by that power, His power, symbolizes His sacrifice for our sin has been accepted. And therefore, those who put their faith and trust in Him are forgiven of all of our sin. It was certain that Jesus would rise from the dead because the resurrection was the plan of God. A second reason it was certain is because this was predicted in Scripture. Notice in verse 25, he is going to use, he has the word for, that is he's going to explain it now. He says for, David says concerning him, I saw the Lord always before me. For he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken. Therefore my heart was glad and my tongue rejoiced. My flesh also will dwell in hope. For you will not abandon my soul to Hades or let your Holy One see corruption. This is an amazing text here. He quotes from Psalm 16 from the Greek translation known as the Septuagint, verses eight through 11. And the key verse that he is using here is verse 27. You will not abandon my soul to Hades. And I have to explain things a little bit here. A little explanation, because you could easily get confused. A lot of times in English, when we say the word soul, we mean the immaterial part of you, right? You have your body. And you have your soul. One is physical, one is spiritual. But the thing is, is that in Hebrew and in Greek, it's not that need of a distinction. And there is a Hebrew word that refers to the entirety of your person. And that word is often translated soul. We know here that it's talking about the entirety of the person. You may say, how do you know that? Because he goes on to say that you will not abandon my soul to Hades, which is a reference here to the grave. How do I know it's a reference to the grave? Look at the next line. Or let your Holy One see corruption. It's talking there about a body decaying in the grave. So if it was just talking about the immaterial part, the immaterial part's not gonna corrupt. It's talking about his body decaying in the grave. And Peter sees in this text in Psalm 16 a reference to the resurrection. Let me show you how he makes this connection. Look at verse 29, please, of chapter two. This is where now he's gonna make, he's finished quoting, he's now going to give his commentary on this. Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried and his tomb is with us to this day. And we know historically that the tomb of David was right there in the Temple Mount area. In fact, Peter may have been pointing to it. David's tomb is with us to this day. David had been buried for a thousand years. And the point that Peter is making here is this prophecy can't be a reference to David, because he didn't come out of the tomb. He's been in there for a thousand years, and undoubtedly his body has decayed in those thousand years. So this must be referring to someone other than David, a descendant of David. And then he goes on to make this connection in verse 30. He says, being therefore a prophet, that is, David's a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on the throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. He said, this reference can't be to David. It has to be, as we look at another passage in Psalm 132, a promise to his descendants. And a descendant of King David was Jesus of Nazareth. And he rose from the dead. He was the fulfillment of that ancient prophecy that David gave in Psalm 16. And his kingdom will last forever. That's what David meant when he gave this prophecy long ago. The resurrection of Christ is prophesied in the Old Testament Scriptures. It's found in Psalm You are my son this day if I begotten thee. It's found in Psalm 16, as we've just seen. It's found in Isaiah 53 and verse 11, where it says of the father that he shall prolong his days. And according to Matthew 12, 40, it is prophesied symbolically in the rescue of Jonah by the great fish, who, as it were, came back from the dead. It's also figurative of the resurrection of Isaac, who was saved from certain death. Hebrews 11, 17 says, this should remind us of the resurrection of Christ. And as I mentioned earlier, Jesus predicted his own resurrection on 10 occasions as found in the gospel record. So the scripture in the Old Testament and the New points to the resurrection of Christ, that it was a certainty that indeed it would take place. Now there is a final reason that we can be assured that the resurrection of Jesus Christ took place, and that is because of the testimony of eyewitnesses. Look with me now at verse 32. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses. This was not, we need to remember this, The death of Christ was not something that took place long ago from when he is saying these words. It was only seven weeks ago. It was recent at the Passover that he died. And then, of course, on the third day, there was the resurrection. And Israel, Jerusalem, was still buzzing with stories about His appearances here and there. This is what everyone was talking about. This was not ancient history. This was current events. And this was the core of the early church's preaching. The apostles would get up and they would say, I saw the risen Lord. In Acts 3.15, Peter will say, God raised him up from the dead, and to this we are witnesses. In Acts 4.20, he says, we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard. Acts 5.30, he says, the God of our fathers raised Jesus, and we are witnesses of these things. In Acts chapter 10, he says, and we are witnesses of all that he did, both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people, but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses. Now, you might object as a skeptic and say, big deal. They could have claimed to have seen anything. But I want you to consider the following facts. Number one, the witness was not isolated to just a handful of people. Remember, the Old Testament says, in the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word shall be established. You only needed two. All 12 disciples on multiple occasions saw the risen Lord. But there were more than just the disciples. We read of the two on the road to Emmaus in Luke chapter 24. They were not apostles, but they saw the risen Lord. And then there were the other women who came to the tomb, Mary Magdalene and another group of women. In 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and verse 6, we read that over 500 brethren saw Him at one time. Christ was seen after his resurrection not once or twice but ten times Ten different occasions he appeared to various followers and this reoccurred over some 40-day period of time But probably what's most powerful is this The disciples were not expecting to see the risen Lord They should have been They should have known the Old Testament prophecies. They should have known what Christ told them. He told them on multiple occasions that He would die, but on the third day, He would rise again. But they didn't like that message. They didn't like the talk of His death and of suffering. They rejected it. And we read in the Gospel accounts in all four Gospels that when He died, They were deflated. They were fearful. They were discouraged. They thought that all the hard work, all that they had done in following around this rabbi for three years, that it was all worthless because he was dead now. They wanted him to become king, and now he was dead. We read about this, the two on the road to Emmaus, they said, we trusted that it had been He that should have redeemed Israel. And they were speaking for all of the Lord's followers. We trusted, past tense. We used to hope, we used to trust, we used to think that He was the Messiah, but not anymore. My point is is that none of the followers of Christ, the apostles and others, none of them were expecting His resurrection. And so the idea that somehow they got together and they concocted this elaborate hoax to deceive the world of His resurrection is just not plausible. And this is very important. It does not account for the transformation of the apostles. Before the resurrection, they were hiding behind locked doors. The man they had been following had been executed as a capital criminal, and they were afraid that indeed the authorities might be coming for them next. They were timid and afraid. They had gone into hiding. But now, through the power of the Holy Spirit, they're standing up before thousands of people and they're preaching the gospel, no matter what the cost might be. The Greek word that we find in these various texts that's translated as witnesses is the origin of our English word martyr. And indeed, all of the disciples but the Apostle John would die for this message that they preached around the world. This is very significant. I want you to listen to this carefully. You might, again, object and say, yeah, well, you know, there's all kinds of people, suicide bombers, there's Buddhists and Hindus who have lit themselves on fire for their faith and protest. There's all kinds of people that will die for what they believe in, and the disciples were just like them. But think it, there's a distinction here. If the disciples made up the story of his resurrection, then they were dying for something they knew to be false. And that's not the way people behave. The people in other religious beliefs, they truly believe what they're doing. They're wrong, but they believe it, and they're willing to die for it. But if the disciples were fake and were phony, and they concocted this story to pass off to the rest of the world, then they all were willing to suffer and die for something they knew wasn't true, and that He really wasn't the Son of God. He was just a Jewish guy from Galilee who had exceptional abilities. You see, it psychologically doesn't make sense that they would suffer and die for something they knew was not true. But the reason why they turned the world upside down and hazarded their lives is because they knew in the very core of their beings that it was true. Because they saw Him, they touched Him, they ate food with Him, they heard His voice. And so this is an historic fact that requires a response. Look at the response to the crowd to Peter's sermon that day. He concludes this way, verse 36, let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. Verse 37, now, when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do? That's the way every preacher wants people to respond. They were stricken with guilt and with fear. What are we going to do? We have crucified the Messiah, the Savior, the Lamb of God. What great guilt have we incurred? What can we do? I hope that that is your response this morning. And the answer is you must believe the gospel. Only a crucified and risen Lord can save you from your sins. The word gospel, in case you don't know, means good news. And the good news is this. It's summarized succinctly by the Apostle Paul in a chapter on the resurrection. He says, Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. And in Romans 10, we read, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Only a crucified and risen Lord can be your Savior. This means, of course, that you and I can never save ourselves. This means that we can't save anyone else. We need a sinless lamb to die in our place and then to rise again demonstrating that he is who he claimed to be. That is the message that has changed millions and millions of lives for 2,000 years. It is the gospel. It is unique to Christianity. There's nothing else similar to it. And it is the only good news that will save sinful people like us. So let me ask you this morning, on Resurrection Sunday, have you put your faith and trust in a crucified and risen Lord? Are you depending on Him alone for your salvation? Or do you still believe in the delusion that somehow you're a pretty good person and you can earn God's favor on your own and you don't need to believe in any of that stuff? If that is your thought, if that is true, then Jesus came and died for nothing. No, the reason why the Father sent His beloved Son is because you and I could never save ourselves. We must have a Savior, a perfect Savior who would die and rise again. May God help you to seek Him today. I'm gonna ask every head to be bowed. At this moment, we're gonna close our service now. Just wanna ask you one question. If you're here this morning on Easter Sunday, perhaps you don't normally go to church, perhaps you're not. One that you would ever consider yourself to be religious in any way, shape, or form. But the Spirit of God has pricked your hearts like He did those people 2,000 years ago. And you would say, I am lost and I need to be saved. Would you pray for me? I'm going to ask you if you would raise your hand at this time. I'm not going to call you out. I'm not going to embarrass you. I just want to know so I can pray for you. Anyone like this? The Lord has pricked my heart, I know I need to be saved, anyone. Father, I pray that you would help this message to continue to work in our hearts, and that you would draw sinners to the Savior, and I pray on this Resurrection Sunday that we, your people, would rejoice in you. that we would be filled with gladness because we serve a risen Savior. For it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.