Untitled Sermon (9)

Resurrection Sunday 4/21/19 Come & See

Overview:

1. Background

COMMENTARY: At this point, obviously Jesus had already been crucified on the cross.

COMMENTARY: And the disciples of Jesus, His students, were no doubt in deep sorrow, they were sad, confused, emotional. Their leader, the one they had all their hope in just died two days prior to this point.

COMMENTARY: And the day before, was Sabbath, so they were not able to visit Jesus' tomb because of the Sabbath law, which says you must rest and cant do anything, including going to the tomb.

2. Main Point

COMMENTARY: So, what we have here is two women going to see the tomb of Jesus on the first day of the Week, Resurrection Sunday. And they see an Empty Tomb!

COMMENTARY: And we want to look at several things regarding the Resurrection of Jesus, the first thing is...

The Importance of the Resurrection

1. Christianity is Empty

1 Corinthians 15:14 NKJV

14 And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty.

1 Corinthians 15:17 NKJV

17 And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!

COMMENTARY: Paul believed so strongly in the evidence for the historical, bodily resurrection of Jesus that he actually points out the place where enemies and skeptics should attack Christianity if they are trying to defeat it.

COMMENTARY:

2. It Shows Us We Can Trust Jesus Vs. 6a

COMMENTARY: The historical, bodily resurrection of Jesus is extremely important because it proves He can be trusted. During his life on Earth, Jesus said many things that were difficult to believe. Some of these claims were about Himself, who He was and what His authority was.

COMMENTARY: Jesus taught that he was God, and not just any god, but the one true God! In fact, the reason Jesus was executed was for teaching that He was God.

John 10:33= SLIDE

COMMENTARY: But how do we know if Jesus was telling the truth about Himself? Jesus knew we would run into this problem, so He gave us a solution, He gave us predictive prophecies about who would put Him to death, how they would treat Him how they would get to Him, when they would do it, where he would die, and most astonishingly, that He would be raised from the dead on the third day.

COMMENTARY: If there is evidence that He was in fact resurrected on the third day then we have a good reason to believe that Jesus was telling us the Truth about everything else he said. The resurrection is how we know Jesus can be trusted.

Matthew 16:21=

Mark 8:31=

Mark 9:31=

Luke 18:31-33=

The Accusations Against The Resurrection

1. The Swoon Theory

COMMENTARY: The swoon theory says Jesus did not die on the cross, he only fainted. That the Roman soldiers believed Jesus had died and ordered him to be buried.

COMMENTARY: And while he was buried in the tomb, Jesus' body was able to begin healing and He revived. After getting some of His strength back, He was able to open the tomb and find his followers.

COMMENTARY: Talk smack

COMMENTARY: For swoon theory to be true, Jesus would have to survive being scourged, which would happen before someone gets crucified, it's a punishment so brutal victims would often die.

COMMENTARY: For swoon theory to be true, Jesus would have to survive the crucifixion a punishment no one survived since it was intended to kill and was carried out by a professional executioner.

COMMENTARY: For swoon theory to be true, Jesus would have to survive having a spear thrust into his heart, a wound no one could survive.

COMMENTARY: If the Swoon Theory was true. He would have to go through the scourging and Crucifixion.

COMMENTARY: After Jesus woke up from Him being fainted, He would have to pop his shoulders and possibly his elbows back into place. Then stand up on His feet whose ankles were now useless because of the Roman nail that was hammered through.

COMMENTARY: Then He would have to roll back a tombstone that weighed about 500 hundred pounds. Then He would have to overpower the armed Roman soldiers guarding his tomb.

COMMENTARY: Then He would have to walk 7 miles back to Jerusalem and walk through people without being recognized or calling attention to Himself, which would be impossible, with all the blood and bruises and skin hanging off his body and disfigurement of His face, I don't think so.

COMMENTARY: By the time Jesus would of found the disciples, the disciples would have thought he needed serious medical attention not that he resurrected from the dead?

COMMENTARY: So the Swoon Theory is almost as miraculous as the Resurrection.

COMMENTARY: You might say, ok, I get it, maybe He did die, but what if the disciples went to the wrong tomb? Well, that's a good question because the next accusation is...

2. The Wrong Tomb Theory

COMMENTARY: The wrong tomb theory says the reason why Jesus' followers found the tomb empty is that everyone simply went to the wrong tomb. After all, the tombs do look alike.

COMMENTARY: As good as that sounds, the Wrong Tomb Theory ends up creating more problems than it solves. The women here in Ch. 28 who discovered the empty tomb had seen Jesus buried, and so they knew which tomb to look for.

COMMENTARY: Not only that, after telling the disciples about the empty tomb they would have to return to the wrong tomb again. A place that was so important to them, the idea of them going to the wrong tomb twice is very unlikely.

COMMENTARY: Also, when these women told Peter and John that the tomb was empty they ran ahead of them to see for themselves. This means they KNEW where to go, and the chances of them finding the SAME empty tomb is VERY unlikely.

COMMENTARY: And although many of the tombs looked alike, it would be really hard to miss Jesus' tomb since it was heavily guarded by Roman Soldiers. We see that in...

Matthew 27:65= SLIDE

COMMENTARY: And you might say, ok maybe He did die and maybe the tomb was empty, but maybe it was because they stole His body! aha!

COMMENTARY: Well that's a good assumption! because that is the next accusation we want to look at is...

3. The Stolen Body Theory

COMMENTARY: The stolen body theory says someone broke into Jesus' tomb and took the body.

COMMENTARY: For this to happen, there are only three groups of people who might have a reason to steal the body: The Romans, The Jews, and Jesus' followers.

COMMENTARY: But, There are two big problems with this Stolen Body Theory.

COMMENTARY: First, The reason the Romans & The Jews would want to steal the body is so that the followers of Jesus could not steal the body and say, "look the tomb is empty". So, let's say the Romans or Jews did in fact steal the body. The moment the Christians claimed Jesus rose from the dead all they had to do was say where the body was moved to.

COMMENTARY: Showing the body would have destroyed Christianity. If they could had proven Jesus was dead when the Christians claimed he rose from the dead, they would have.

COMMENTARY: In addition to this, this does not explain all the eye witnesses who claimed they saw Jesus after He died. We have recorded documents outside of the bible and inside of the bible that record Friends & Enemies of Jesus that claim they seen Jesus after His death.

1 Corinthians 15:4-8= Jesus appeared to His friends & then His enemies.

James The Enemy Vs. 7

COMMENTARY: James who is Jesus' half brother was an enemy of Jesus. in...

John 7:5= James did not believe Jesus

Mark 3:20= James thought Jesus was insane

COMMENTARY: But after James saw the Jesus after He rose from the dead. James became the leader of the Church in Jerusalem. He wrote the book of James. And He died for his faith in Jesus.

Paul The Enemy Vs. 8

COMMENTARY: Who was also an enemy of Jesus in Acts 8:1-3 Paul killed Christians. But after He seen Jesus after His resurrection Paul preached the Gospel for then next 30 years and he wrote two thirds of the NT Bible.

COMMENTARY: If The Romans, The Jews or The Followers of Jesus stole the body of Christ why would enemies of Jesus claim they seen Jesus after He died?

4. The Legend Theory

COMMENTARY: The legend theory says that in the years after Jesus' death the disciples wanted to keep his teachings alive so they invented stories about Him and these stories developed and evolved. Over time these stories started to claim Jesus had supernatural powers and include miraculous events, the biggest of which was His resurrection.

COMMENTARY: Here is the issue with the Legend Theory, if all this was made up and evolved to what it is now like Jesus being God, Jesus having supernatural powers, and Jesus resurrecting from dead. Why did all the disciples minus one, die horrible deaths for their faiths in Jesus?

COMMENTARY: You see if Jesus was a regular normal guy, who did not raise from the dead why would His disciples die and risk their lives for Him?

COMMENTARY: That means they would have died for a lie they knew was a lie since they were the ones who made it up. Now, People certainly die for lies but not for lies they invented. Check this out...

Peter - Crucified, Rome

James - Sword, Jerusalem

Matthias - Stoning, beheaded, Jerusalem

James Alpheus - Stoning, Jerusalem

Matthew - Beheaded, Ethiopia

Bartholomew - Beaten, crucified, flayed, beheaded, Armenia

Thomas - Speared, India

Simon the Zealot - crucified, Modern day Britain

Philip - Crucified, Hieropolis, Modern day Turkey

Andrew - Crucified, Greece

Jude - Crucified, Mesopotamia

Mark - Dragged through the streets, Alexandria

COMMENTARY: The disciples died for their faith in Jesus, and the evidence of their deaths is also an explanation for the next accusation. which is...

5. The Hallucination Theory

COMMENTARY: The hallucination theory says that that the followers of Jesus were so upset and emotional by Jesus' death that they began to think the saw Him even though He wasn't there.

COMMENTARY: But here are the issues, hallucinations are like dreams people have when they're awake. But no matter how vivid someone's dream or hallucination is, they would never confuse the experience with reality so much that they would die for it.

COMMENTARY: And if you remember the bible tells us that a group of over 500 people seen Jesus after His death, what are the chances of all those people to have the same hallucination? what are the chances that everyone else who claimed they seen Jesus also have the same halluciniation?

COMMENTARY: On top of all this, remember enemies of Jesus also claimed they seen Him after He rose from the dead. If this was just a hallucination, Jesus' enemies would not see such things.

6. The Substitution Theory

COMMENTARY: The Substitution Theory says Jesus had a twin brother or someone who looked like him who switched places with Him and died in Jesus' place. Then two days later Jesus came out of hiding claiming that He had been resurrected from the dead.

COMMENTARY: And if this were true, then the body that looked like Jesus would still be in the tomb and all the Romans or Jews would have to do to Stop Christianity was open the tomb and show everyone the body.

COMMENTARY: That one was easy....

The Reason for the Resurrection

COMMENTARY: The reason is Love. Before someone rises from the dead they have to die? He died for our sins.