I invite you to take your copies of God's Word and to turn with me to Matthew chapter 28, verses 1 through 15. Our sermon title is, Good News, He Has Risen. Matthew 28, 1 through 15, as we are winding up, getting close to the end of our sermon series on Matthew, verse by verse, entitled, Behold Your King. Beginning in verse 1 of chapter 28, text reads, Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him, the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the woman, do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead. And behold, he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him. See, I have told you. So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy and ran to tell his disciples. And behold, Jesus met them and said, Greetings. And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me." While they were going, behold, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests all that had taken place. And when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers and said, tell people his disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep. And if this comes to the governor's ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble. So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story has been spread among the Jews to this day. This is the word of God. Let us hear it. Let us heed it. Now last week I began by quoting to you 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verses 3 through 4. And there it says that I, being called, delivered to you as of 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. These are the pattern by which we have been following. We have looked at these events separately, the crucifixion and death, the burial of Jesus, and now today his resurrection. These are the historical facts that make up the very essence and the basis of the gospel. They form the ground for our Christian hope and the accomplishment of the salvation of our souls. the defeat of our great enemy, sin, death, and the devil himself. The crucifixion, the burial of Jesus, and the resurrection of Jesus are separate actions on the part of Jesus, and we have considered them separately. But I want you to see that though they are separate actions, this is a unified event. It is a single event, and these separate actions must not be separated, not divorced of the other. They are like three legs of a stool, and you take one out and the whole thing collapses. Without any one of them, whatever is accomplished by the other is nullified. You cannot have glory in the crucifixion if there is no resurrection. And in order to be raised from the grave, he must be in the grave first. There must be a grave in which he was buried, a tomb that is empty. And so all are important. All four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, report the crucifixion, the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. but no one single gospel reports every detail. No one single gospel tells us everything there is to know about these events. We can use the details that we gather to piece together and get a more well-rounded, a more full picture of the whole scenes of what surrounded the cross and the empty tomb later on. But I've also learned that while it is important to get a full picture of everything that has happened, a harmonization, if you will, of the Gospels, it is important also to look at each indivisible Gospel and to see what details they mention and what details they leave out, for each Gospel writer has his own specific purpose and theological meaning for writing. There's just as much reason for what they put in sometimes as what they leave out. They have focus on certain things or certain aspects of the same story. For instance, why does Matthew mention the details that he does? And moreover, why does he leave out or condense other stuff that he could include? An example might be that Luke and John Both mention that there are two angels at the resurrection that morning. Two angels that appear at the tomb. Both Matthew and Mark only mention one. Now they're not wrong for mentioning one. If there's one, I mean if there's two, there's at least one in both cases. But they only mention one or only focus on one. Maybe it is one who speaks. But in fact, Martin doesn't even use the word angel at all to describe what's said. He just says a young man in a white robe clearly talking about an angel. John tells us where the two angels are sitting. Matthew talks about one sitting on a rock. We also see that there are angels sitting at the head and the feet of Jesus Christ. And the picture that John is trying to make for us in the empty tomb, the bench there with the two angels on either end is of the mercy seat of God. That God is enthroned in between the cherubim. That Christ has satisfied and made atonement and now reigns In the very presence of God, He is there. He wants to recall that sin that we've been satisfied, God's wrath has been satisfied in a propitiation of blood atonement, not of a lamb, but of the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. But the point is that each gospel writer has his own specific purpose in what he's writing, to focus on specific things. And Matthew's purpose is to focus on the different witnesses to the resurrection, the different reports, the different witnesses, those who saw the resurrection. Now, later on, we're going to discuss the importance and the meaning of the resurrection, specifically within the context of the Gospel of Matthew. But the importance is to see that in the gospel writers, they're not trying to tell us the meaning of the resurrection, not right now. They're trying to tell us the fact of the resurrection, that the resurrection did indeed happen. Paul and others will tell us the full meaning of the resurrection, and that's important. But here we are establishing the fact that the tomb is empty. The crucified one is now risen. Friday is over and Sunday has now come. Jesus is not resurrected spiritually. Jesus is not, as the liberals say, resurrected in our hearts. Jesus is not resurrected every time we open the word of God and pray. no Jesus was historically bodily resurrected we could touch the cross and feel and get splinters in our fingers and we could also touch the inside of the empty tomb and hold the grave clothes that once contained our Messiah who is not dead and his bones are not rotting in a tomb somewhere in Israel but he is alive and at the right hand of God bodily. And Matthew's specific focus is on the witnesses to this fact of the resurrection. I want us to see in verses 1 through 7, the angels' witness to the women. The angels' witness to the women. This is just after dawn on Sunday morning. This is why we worship on Sundays instead of Saturday, the seventh day as we just read. We've marked off that Christ has redeemed us, has set us free. We celebrate not only the creation of God in six days, resting on the Sabbath, but also our redemption and the rest that is provided in Christ. Worshipping every Sunday morning, we were reminded of the resurrection truth that Christ has risen. He has given us rest. He has given us life, and we celebrate that fact every Sunday morning. But last week we saw that several women had stayed at the cross and watched Jesus be crucified from a distance. These are women that had come from Galilee. They had served Jesus, had been with Jesus, were disciples of Jesus. They had followed Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus to the very tomb where Jesus was buried. Women were the last to see Jesus on the cross, the last to see the tomb closed up that day, and they're the first ones to go and see Jesus that Sunday morning. They're the first ones to arrive at the tomb that day to see that it is opened again. And Matthew tells us that the two Marys, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, the one described earlier as the mother of James and Joseph, went to the tomb. Mark adds that Salome was there as well. And Luke mentions a Joanna also. Luke tells us that they were going there carrying spices and going to anoint Jesus' body once again. They were having to bury Jesus early on Friday. There was a rush job and they had plenty of spices to do the trick. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea had to get Jesus in the grave before sundown. And so maybe they didn't do the job properly and maybe just speculating. Women definitely thought the men didn't do the job properly. And so they're going back to the tomb that morning. Mark adds that they had not yet figured out quite how they were going to remove the stone. They were asking one another who's going to remove the stone for us. But it's not going to take long before they get their answer. Because there is a great earthquake. It could have been an aftershock from the earthquake that was mentioned in chapter 27 in verse 51. The earthquake that accompanied the crucifixion and death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Here is an earthquake and the stone is rolled back. Along with the earthquake, there's an angel that descends from heaven, and he rolls back the stone and sits upon it. Many see the act of his sitting upon the stone as to show the finished authority of Jesus' redemption, that the work is accomplished and accepted, much like when Jesus ascends to the right hand of the Father and sits down, saying the work is done, it is complete, it is over. Now the angel doesn't roll back the stone in order to let Jesus out. The angel does not roll back the stone in order to let Jesus escape. The angel rolls back the stone to show that Jesus is not there, that the tomb is indeed empty. The one who had risen from the dead does not need anyone else to remove the stone for him. The tomb is empty. Verse three describes for us the awesome appearance of the angel, that he was like lightning. His clothing was as white as snow, that clearly he was a radiant and glorious figure. And the fearsome appearance, no doubt, led to verse four and the reaction that the guards had to seeing the angel. Now you remember from last week that the Jewish leaders had petitioned Pilate to supply them with a detachment of soldiers to guard the tomb of Jesus. They remember that Jesus had predicted a resurrection after three days and they were afraid that Jesus' disciples might try to steal the body of Jesus away and then spread the news that Jesus had indeed done as he had said. pilot ultimately granted their request. Now the text says that upon feeling the earthquake and seeing the angels, the angel, the soldiers trembled and became like dead men. Jesus is alive and now they're dead. Well, not really. More likely they fainted. They just become paralyzed with fear. The word for trembled, they trembled, is the same word, the root of which we see in the word the ground shook, that there was an earthquake. There's a play on words here. The ground shook and then the guards shook, is what it's saying. They quaked in their boots. The women are scared too, but they don't faint. The angel addresses them with the first words that any angel that appears to a human always seems to say in the Bible. Do not be afraid. Scary thing to get confronted by an angel. They're fearsome in appearance and you're not expecting them to be there. how the fear must have started melting into wonder as the angel continued to speak, saying, I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. The angel says, you're looking in the wrong place. No, it's not that the women were looking in the wrong tomb. This is the very tomb where Jesus had indeed been laid three days before. It's the same one that they had put Jesus in on Friday. It's the same one the soldiers had been guarding. The angel even directs them to come and look where Jesus had been laid. And other gospel writers tell us that there is a wad of grave clothes that are there, yards and yards of this linen fabric that are there. And John even tells us that the cloth that had gone over Jesus' face was neatly folded up beside the rest of it. By the way, just as a hypothetical, If the story is true that Jesus' body was stolen by the disciples, how many robbers do you know that take the time to fold clothes while they are going about their thievery? No, the women are looking for Jesus in the wrong place because this is a place for dead people. And Jesus is not dead. He has risen. Luke says the angel asked, why do you seek the living among the dead? The angel even reminds them that this is precisely as Jesus had predicted and promised. He did. He's risen just as he said he would. And he rebukes them sort of, y'all should have known. Y'all should have been expecting this. You should have come here ready to see the tomb empty because Jesus had said over and over again, I am going to be delivered over. The chief priests are going to flog me. They're going to crucify me. And on the third day, I'm what? I'm going to rise again from the dead. They should have believed the word of God, but they weren't expecting it. The disciples certainly weren't. They're not even there that morning. Look, everything else that happened just as Jesus had predicted. Why not this? Is anything too hard for Jesus? Can he not rise from the dead? Indeed, nothing is impossible with God. It is only appropriate that an angel would announce the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Matthew had already told us that angels had announced to Zechariah, that angels had announced to Joseph, and angels had announced to Mary. We learn from Luke and other places as well. We know that the angels announced to the shepherds about the birth of Jesus as well and what Jesus would do and who he would be, that he would save his people from their sins. As shepherds were keeping watch over their flocks by night, The angels basically came and said, He is born. Now an angel is coming and saying, He was dead and now is alive. He is alive. They announce his birth. The angel is a messenger from God the Father, an emissary sent by the Heavenly Father to the women. The angel never announces his own message, but proclaims only what the Father has given him. to announce and God the Father is giving witness through the angel that Jesus is risen. The angel then gives the women some instructions in verse 7. They are to go quickly to Jesus' disciples and to tell them that this news that Jesus is alive and they are also to tell them that he is going to Galilee and that they will see him there. So, that brings us to point two. The women's witness to the disciples, there in verses eight through ten. This is exactly what the women are doing. They are departing quickly, it says, from the tomb to go and tell Jesus' disciples, and they are flooded with a mixture of emotions. They are both fearful as well as joyful, it says. They're fleeing, they're running, their heart is racing. They are fearful and they are joyful. Now, they had come to the tomb that morning sad and sorrowful. They are no longer sad and sorrowful. They're fearful, yes, but they're joyful now. This is the difference that the resurrection makes in our life. It makes a difference when we know a loved one has believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and has gone on, does it not? changes our heart from sadness to comfort, a fear, but also a joy knowing what they are experiencing. And while they're rushing back to tell the disciples, Jesus appears to them with a very hearty greetings. I mean, I don't know what your first words as a resurrected person ought to be. Jesus says, hello. They grab Jesus' feet and they worship Him. Look, I want you to see they take hold of Jesus. This is no spirit that has appeared to them. This is no ghostly specter that is before them. Jesus has been raised and He has been raised bodily. It is a glorified body, to be sure, but a body nonetheless. doesn't just appear alive, he is alive. And seeing this resurrected man before them, they fall prostrate in worship. This is the first Sunday worship service that Christians have been repeating ever since. But I won't want you to miss them. They worship him, they fall and they worship him. Now, angels are not allowed to be worshipped. Men are not permitted to be worshipped. We shall put no other gods before the one true God of Israel. This is the God of Israel with whom he will not share his glory with another. Men have been struck down for committing blasphemy and idolatry and worshipping that which is not God. They are worshipping Jesus. Why? Because He's the very same God. He's one and the same. This Jesus is both man and God. He is the resurrection and the life, and He is to be worshipped as the only Lord and Savior who is at the Father's side. Jesus gives them in verse 10 almost exactly the same words of comfort and instruction that the angel had given to them. He tells them to not to be afraid. He repeats to them that they are to go to the disciples and to tell them to go to Galilee where they will see Jesus. But two things stick out for us here. Notice, first of all, that Jesus calls them my brothers. Go and tell my brothers, not my servants, not even my disciples. These are those whom he loved, who had been with him. Those, he says, my brothers. My mother and my brothers are those who do the will of my father who is in heaven That's who my mother and my brothers are here. He calls them his brothers. These are those who had Abandoned him those who had strays though had deserted him in his very moment of need They had not stood with him unto death as they had promised to do mark even tells us that because Mark is writing on behalf of Peter, that Jesus said, go tell my brothers and Peter. He specifically mentions Peter because of what has happened. The second thing is that all this was part of the prediction made back in chapter 26, verses 31 through 32. The night before Jesus was crucified, Jesus had said, you will all fall away because of me this night. They're going to abandon him. He says it is written, I will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered. He predicted that they would abandon them. They'll all be scattered. They'd all desert him. But then he says, but after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee. that Galilee is the place, as one commentator says, where the deserters become disciples again, where they will see the Lord Jesus and those who had abandoned the Lord Jesus will be renewed in their fellowship with him. Well, we come to verse 11, and our third point is that the soldiers witness to the priests. Now, we mentioned last week that women were unlikely candidates to be the first witnesses of the resurrection. That in that society, women were not considered very credible. They were not even allowed to serve as official witnesses in a court of law for that reason. The point of that is to say that if this is a hoax, the resurrection, if this story is made up by the disciples, then it would be very unlikely that you would put women as the first witnesses, because that would make the credibility of the story in doubt. You would only put women as the first witnesses to the resurrection if the story was true, and that's the way it happened. But just as the women being the first witnesses to the resurrection is unlikely, so are the second witnesses to the resurrection. The soldiers, these Roman soldiers themselves, and they go and they tell the priests what had happened. We don't know how much they got of what the angels said, whether they were out cold from being fainted or just paralyzed with fears, not sure, but they tell all that they know. There's are the very ones who had fainted with fright. Some of them appeared to them. They are not filled with joy like the women. They are not in the mood to worship as the women were. Some of them go back to the city to tell the chief priest what had taken place. What I want you to hear is that some of the very first people that hear the news that Jesus is now alive are the very people that killed Jesus, are the very people that were instigators in putting Jesus to death. They were at the initiative of that fact. And this news is anything but good news to them. It is their very worst fear. So we see now then in verses 12 through 15, our fourth and final point, the priests false witness to the world. Verse 12 says they assembled the elders and they took counsel together. What are they going to do with this news that they have just received? They're saying to one another, we can't let it get out that Jesus is alive. The nation will be thrown into an uproar. The Romans will come. They will kill us all and take away our place in our nation. Everyone will condemn us for killing what now appears to be the Messiah. So what do they do? They bribe the soldiers that tell them this news. In fact, the text says that they give them a sufficient, a large sum of money, whatever it took to not just keep quiet about what happened, but also to tell a different tale when asked about it. The soldiers are told to spread a lie. They are told to give the excuse that the tomb is empty because they had fallen asleep and the disciples came at night and stole the body of Jesus away. And the Jewish leaders, the priests, they promised to protect the soldiers from their superiors by willing to offer them a bribe as well. We'll satisfy them. We'll offer them a bribe as well. If they don't punish you, we'll protect you from this because you could get punished, even killed for falling asleep and neglecting your duties as a Roman soldier. So the soldiers agreed. They accepted the bribe. They spread the false testimony. And as Matthew reports, this very report was continuing to be circulated along the Jews to the very day that Matthew wrote his gospel. And one of his purposes is to kind of quell that whole false rumor. So the very thing, the very thing that the chief priests and the elders had worked so very hard to prevent from happening, so that it would not be spread back in chapter 27, verse 64. They are now responsible for spreading. Back then, they called Jesus an imposter and a frog. Now he's the one who's proven true, and they are shown to be the real frogs and the real imposters. They're the ones spreading lies. Now listen, the priests and the elders of Israel were supposed to be teachers to the nation. They were supposed to be lights to those who are in darkness. They were supposed to be guides to those who were blind. These people were supposed to teach the nation and lead the nation and speak truth to the nation. And here they are telling lies to the nation that will damn the nation. Lies that affect people's eternal destiny. No one has seen more truth than these chief priests and these elders. No one has seen more verifying proof of the miracles, and the resurrection is simply undeniable, and nobody knew it more than they. Listen, the very hottest parts of hell are reserved not for the Hitlers and Mao Zedongs, of this world, not for the Charles Mansons and the Jeffrey Dahmers of this world. The hardest parts of hell are reserved for these people who have this much light and reject it. Who know the most, but don't believe at all. I'm reminded of what Abraham said in Luke chapter 16. Jesus tells a story about the rich man and Lazarus the rich man who had good things in this life now suffering in eternity in hell. The great chasm is fixed between the two. Abraham has Lazarus, the poor man, in his bosom at this time. And the rich man is concerned for his five brothers who are still living, not wanting them to go to hell. And the rich man begs for Abraham to send someone from the dead to go and to speak to them, go and warn them. And Abraham said to him, they have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them. They said, no, no, they won't listen to Moses and the prophets. But if someone go back, goes back from the dead, they will repent. And Abraham says, If they will not listen to Moses and to the prophets, neither will they believe or repent if someone returns from the dead to tell them. I mean, we would think that seeing this much evidence of the truth, it would cause some of them to stop and think for a moment, right? To just kind of wake up. This guy has done a lot of miracles. This guy was dead and now he's alive. He ought to be worshipped. And surely some of them do stop and think. We're told that there are several priests in Acts who are converted to the faith. So certainly some of them are woken up. I want to close by talking about this. What is at stake? We looked at the fact of the resurrection. What is at stake here of whether or not this is true? Because they give false testimony, say that the body was stolen. What if the reports of the resurrection are not true? Because the liberal Christians, those in mainline Protestantism, tell us that it's possible to have the ethical teachings of Jesus, to have the essence of Christianity without the truth of the resurrection. They said we can still follow Jesus as a good man even if we do not follow him as God. They argue that we can still have the life of Jesus in our hearts even if his bones are still lying dead in a tomb outside Jerusalem. Are they right? Is the resurrection important? I want to just kind of go back through some of the verses in Matthew that we've read and I want you to hear them on the lips of Jesus and imagine for a moment him saying that and then still being dead now after the crucifixion. Imagine if it makes sense to you what Jesus said how you would think about the things that he said if he is now, in fact, dead. For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done. Matthew 16, 27. When the Son of Man comes in His glory and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. Before Him will be gathered all the nations. He will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and He will place the sheep on His right and the goats on His left. Matthew 27, 51 through 53. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be there three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against you. Whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it. Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. This is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink of it new with you in my father's kingdom." Coming down from the Mount of Transfiguration, where they saw Jesus transfigured before them, he says, "'Tell no one the vision until the Son of Man is raised from the dead.'" Over five or six times in Matthew, he specifically mentions not only that he will be crucified, but that he will rise again on the third day. Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on its glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel, and everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life. Do you hear what that sounds like, if this guy is still dead? Truly and really, Jesus is either liar, lunatic, or Lord. He's either outright lying, or he is a madman and crazy for thinking the things that he does, or he is resurrected and he is Lord. Clearly you know where I stand on the position, and I think the scriptures are clear. Without the resurrection, Jesus is a poor soul. He has died a cursed man, a man forsaken by the Father. Everything his enemies mocked him for, saying must have been true of him. He saved others he couldn't save himself. He trusted in God, but God didn't come to save him. Jesus, if there is no resurrection, is a pitiable character. But you know who's worse than Jesus? We are. if there's no resurrection. And Paul makes that very clear in 1 Corinthians 15. He says, if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? He says, But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. Your resurrection is based on the fact that Christ has been raised from the dead. And if Christ has not been raised, then you definitely have no hope that you yourself will be raised from the dead. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is in vain. All I'm doing up here is just blowing a lot of smoke and hot air. that I have surrendered my entire life to something that is utterly worthless to do. All that I'm doing is absolute vanity, he's saying, if Christ is not raised. It's the very foundation on which we stand and why we do what we do. He said, not only is my preaching hot air and smoke, but your faith, your faith is worthless. You believe the lie. I'm telling you lies and you're believing lies. If there is no resurrection. Not only that, we're found to be misrepresenting God. We're false teachers. Because we have testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile. You are still in your sins. So worse than your faith being worthless is that you're going to stand before God and you've got no advocate. You're going to stand in judgment before God one day. There is no atonement for your sins. There is no hope for you. And you're guilty before God and you're going to hell. This sounds like good news, huh? No. Do you see how the resurrection is the basis of all of our good news? Those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. There's no hope for your loved ones. No hope for the dead. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. And that's the point I wanted to make. If we gather together on Sundays and meet together just so that we can be better people or just so that we can get through this life and it'll give us a little comfort until we go to the grave. He's saying, we're a hopeless, pitiful bunch. And the world ought to look at us and say, bunch of backwoods hicks. That's stupid. Their faith is stupid. And a lot of times they do that, don't they? But what Paul says is that Christ has been raised. And what we've seen is that the facts overwhelmingly tell us that Christ has indeed been raised. which means that all of this is good news because Christ has redeemed you from your sins and you now can stand before the Lord God and you not only have resurrection life within you that you dwell in presently but have a hope for the future and a hope that you too will be raised with Him and be like Christ in that day. God, Almighty has not forsaken his son. God has accepted the sacrifice that Jesus has made on our behalf. He has vindicated Jesus and raised him up from the grave. And that Jesus, who was cursed, is now blessed and accepted. And we who have believed in the Lord Jesus have also been blessed and accepted by God. And when we die, we have hope that we will one day, too, be raised again with Christ. which is why we come to church and we tell each other this each and every week because our preaching is given importance and it's given relevance. Our faith is giving worth and value and everything we do has its basis in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, the fact of that resurrection. Let's go to the Lord in prayer.