Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Well, good morning.
[00:00:07] Before I get into the message, and I know the children are just anxious to leave, between ages 3 and 5, I'd like to do something that I made a promise years ago.
[00:00:22] So I'm fulfilling a vow today to one of our members now, years ago. By the way, I'm Carl Morgan. I'm former pastor. A lot of you I don't know been here a long time, but most time during the service, I'm in the harvest hall or in the foyer. But we years ago, we used to sing Happy Birthday to everybody that had a birthday.
[00:00:48] But we were a lot smaller then, but there. So I started limiting it to age 90.
[00:00:58] So if you had a birthday during that week, you would get Happy Birthday sung to you.
[00:01:04] Well, Anita, one week, I remember it pretty well. She probably remembers it very well. She said, well, it's my birthday. But I said, but you're not 90.
[00:01:14] So we made a vow. I said, when you turn 90, sing Happy Birthday to you.
[00:01:20] Now, I don't know.
[00:01:22] I don't know how many years ago that was. Do you remember that?
[00:01:26] A few. A few. Maybe 20 years, maybe 20 or more.
[00:01:32] But she's hung on, and she's here today. We got a row of her family here. So we're going to sing Happy Birthday to her. All right.
[00:01:45] She turned Happy birthday. Her day was what, Tuesday was that this week? Birthday tooth. So God bless you, Anita. So you have to stand for this one. You waited this long, we're going to do it. So this is Anita Smith.
[00:02:01] All right, you ready? Happy birthday to you Happy birthday to you Happy birthday, dear Anita Happy birthday to you Amen. God bless you.
[00:02:31] Well, if you turn 90, Duba will lead you.
[00:02:39] I make you children three to five. Now, if you'd like to go back for your time of worship today and be with your groups, I think most have already gone. That's going for that.
[00:02:49] The rest of us are going to be turning to John, chapter 20 to continue the study in John.
[00:02:58] And we want to.
[00:03:00] It's in verses one through ten is where we're going to be looking.
[00:03:04] And let me get all my stuff out here.
[00:03:09] I'm going to use that.
[00:03:11] Get the bottle of water out and probably use that.
[00:03:16] Okay, that's good enough.
[00:03:20] We're going to be looking at a passage. It's a continuation of Chapter 19, the end of the chapter there.
[00:03:27] And I need to back up just a little bit to set the tone for what's happening. Pastor Duba did a wonderful job of leading into that. And then Pastor Duba will bring the following message next week from verses 11 on through the end.
[00:03:43] I don't know how far you're going to be going. 18 maybe, or something like whatever you get to.
[00:03:47] Oh my. Well, maybe I'll just keep going today and you find out what I do.
[00:03:56] How much time do I have here? Okay. 1026.
[00:03:59] All right.
[00:04:01] But if you remember the end of what he was talking about, where Nicodemus, Jesus had been crucified and there's a man who was Joseph of Arimathea, he came asking for the body of Jesus and he took. They took it down. Pilate said, okay. And he and Nicodemus prepared the body for burial. They did it. It says very specifically he come to him by. He came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes. A hundred pounds weight. That's a. That's a lot of myrrh and aloes and spices.
[00:04:35] And when I saw that then they took the body of Jesus and bound him in linen wrappings with the spices as his burial custom of the Jews. That set me to thinking about how this happened and what it was about.
[00:04:50] See, what they were doing with Jesus was preparing him for something that Pastor Duba alluded to that about a time where they would put him in an ossuary. He was being prepared for something they did from 30 BC to 70 AD in Jerusalem, primarily where they would wrap the body, wrapping one at a time. They'd cut it and wrap. Not like that. They would do the arms and legs separate and they would wrap them well. First of all, the naked body would be there and they would coat it with myrrh and aloe.
[00:05:27] Then they would wrap it with wrappings. Then they'd put another coating of myrrh and aloe. It's like glue.
[00:05:34] And they wrapped him and he would be like that. It's very similar. Remember when Jesus called out Lazarus, Lazarus come forth from his tomb. He's being prepared for that as well because he came out. I picture him coming like that and Jesus says, unbind him because he couldn't do it himself.
[00:05:52] They needed to help him get out of that garb. Well, anyhow, this is what Jesus was being prepared for. A lot of people don't grasp that. And he would have been placed in that ossuary.
[00:06:06] Now show an ossuary before. Don't do it yet. I got a question for you. This is a challenge for you. It's a trivia question. Now, some of you know, if you've been in the museum, who was the one person mention in The Bible that we actually have bones for today.
[00:06:28] Not John, not Moses, James. No.
[00:06:37] And there's only one. Well, I mean, we could go on and on. We name every person in the Bible, but I don't know if we're going to get there. So we'll show the slide.
[00:06:47] What's his name? Caiaphas.
[00:06:49] His ossuary was discovered a few years back and it's beautiful, it's big. And his name was Caiaphas. He was the high priest at the time of the trial of Jesus. So they found his. His name was written on it. Josephus Caiaphas. And that's your attribute. This is what they were preparing Jesus to put his body in this type of thing. And then they take it out, they go in a year later after they wrap him in these, and the year later they go in and unwrap him and take his bones out by then and they put the bones into this ossuary. Well, there's one problem with Jesus.
[00:07:30] He didn't need one because he was raised on the third day. Caiaphas. Mmm.
[00:07:38] We have his bones. Okay, show the next slide. And it tells a little bit about him, I think. Yeah.
[00:07:45] In this box it contained the bones of six persons. And one was a 62 year old man.
[00:07:51] That's the age that Caiaphas died at. It was found in 1990 by accident through a construction project.
[00:07:57] It was written in Aramaic on it. Josephus Caiaphas. Scholars agree that this is the high priest at the time and trial of Jesus. So these are the first and only bones found of one person mentioned in the Bible. Anyhow, that's your trivia. I guarantee you will stump anybody with that question if you have Bible trivia. So we're going to look at the message this morning, put up the first slide and you'll see the witnesses. Okay. Almost 2,000 years ago, there was a discovery was made in Jerusalem. It was early on the day following the Sabbath. And of course we know the Sabbath was on a Saturday. So the day following would be Sunday morning.
[00:08:34] This is not the Sabbath. Yesterday was the Sabbath. It's the first day of the week. So they measured time not by days names. They went from the Sabbath Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 until the next Sabbath. And so we know it was Sunday morning, it was still dark. And it says that now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb while it was still dark and saw the stone already taken away from the tomb. So we have here that we know that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all had their understanding from their own experiences about what really happened that morning, on that dark morning.
[00:09:13] And each tells the story in his own way with details that were important to him. That's why they're all so different.
[00:09:21] They give a complete picture, but they're all different. But they all arrive at the same conclusion. And that was Jesus Christ was raised from the dead.
[00:09:30] And by the way, the real reason Christians meet on Sunday like today, which we do instead of the Sabbath, which was yesterday, is because we celebrate and are reminded of the fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ every Sunday we come together and Jesus Christ again was raised to new life on the first day of the week. But. But to those mentioning John's gospel, this was a very mysterious day.
[00:10:00] Some even thought a crime had been committed.
[00:10:04] When you see Mary Magdalene, she comes early to the tomb and saw that the stone was taken away. Uh oh, a red light flashed or an exclamation point came up or something. They didn't have red lights. They had. But they had something came up in her mind, said, what in the world has happened?
[00:10:20] Who has done this horrible thing? And then so she ran. It doesn't even say she looked in, but she did and she found out there was no body in there.
[00:10:30] Somebody. And her immediate decision on that is found in verse 2. So she ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved and said to them, they have taken away the Lord out of the tomb and we don't know where they have laid him.
[00:10:45] So she said, somebody stole the body of Jesus. Now that's a crime. That's a big crime. At one point in Roman history, it was a capital crime for that to happen. You'd lose your life if you did something like that. So we have this mentioned in the Gospel of John and this was a.
[00:11:06] This morning we're going to look at the facts needed to try to solve this mystery according to what they had to look at and how we can arrive at a similar conclusion that they did at the end. Now, to solve a mystery, you need first of all witnesses, don't you?
[00:11:24] And three are mentioned in this passage. The first is Mary Magdalene and Magdalene. Magdalene. Magdalene primarily is how you say it. Now, she's the first person to see the empty tomb and she's the first witness to for what happened on that morning.
[00:11:40] So in her mind, judging from what she saw, the large stone had been tampered with. And her thought was somebody had stolen the body or they moved it. As a matter of fact, she uses they did it. She Says that twice they did it.
[00:11:58] They've taken the Lord out of the tomb and we don't know where they have put him. Now who in the world were the they that she had in mind? We don't know.
[00:12:07] Nobody ever says. There's been a lot of thoughts what it may have been, but the Bible doesn't let us know that. And she was not alone that morning either. There's four, maybe five women that were with her, but John doesn't care about them. He's focusing upon her because apparently they had left and told the disciples and she stayed there alone and then she left. Or she left and they stayed and then she came back. It. It all works together, believe me. If you try to put it together. Now, the first character though is Mary Magdalene. And in her mind something really bad had happened. Now what do we know about Mary Magdalene? I think this is important. And the big answer to that is not a whole lot.
[00:12:50] So she was from Magdala, and that's a hidden city. Until recently. I remember taking tours to Israel with groups and we'd drive by the shores of the western shore of the Sea of Galilee and. And you look over and there's this.
[00:13:06] Remnants of something that used to be there, but didn't say. It was Magdala, and we didn't know where it really was.
[00:13:13] And this is something interesting. I have my favorite commentary for John. It's by a guy named Leon Morris, and it's four volumes. This is volume four. But he makes a statement here I thought was kind of interesting. He says, the Talmud tells us that there was a town called Magdala about 20 minutes walk from Tiberias on the western side of the Sea of Galilee. The word means tower. And evidently there was a tower of some sort that gave the place its name. Perhaps it was a guard tower, a fort. The town seems to have been the center of a thriving fishing industry.
[00:13:50] Well, what's interesting, this was written back in 1998.
[00:13:56] If you go there today, there's a major town there, excavated, of course.
[00:14:01] And it happened in the excavation in 2006.
[00:14:07] In 2001, actually, the water level went so low on the Sea of Galilee, this town started emerging and it's all dry. So they started excavating and they actually found that tower that was talking about. And we don't really a wonderful site to go and visit. But the excavations begin in 2006 and they found there the oldest synagogue in Galilee. And obviously Jesus would have been there. And you can actually go to a synagogue and then they Found another one in 2021, the same site. This was a big city and it's been hidden all these generations until just in your life and mine. So if you ever go to Israel, go to Magdala. It's a spectacular place to go. It's a major tourist attraction today as the excavations still continue.
[00:14:51] So we don't know much else about her past.
[00:14:54] We know that she's mentioned as one of the many women who traveled with Jesus and helped support his ministry out of her own resources, indicating that she was probably a woman of substance and means. But we do not know how she came by that wealth, if she was ever married, whether she had children, whether she was actually a rich widow.
[00:15:18] And she's mentioned that she had seven demons cast out of her. Remember that? And as for the seven demons which Jesus cast out from her in Luke 8. 2 and Mark 16:9, we don't know anything about that. It just says it happened. So what were those circumstances behind this? Nobody knows. They've tried to create circumstances. And then the Gospels are silent though. So in any event, after Mary Magdalene met Jesus, she must have repented of all her sins, including the seven of these demons we're bringing about, probably related to a particular lifestyle. And she gave up her past life and all her earthly possessions and life of luxury would be given up as well, in order to follow Jesus and to faithfully minister to his needs as a disciple, as a friend, and most importantly, as one who dearly loved him, along with the other disciples as well, in sincerity, in faith. It was a very pure love, I'm sure, just like the rest of the disciples loved him, I'm sure as well. Now, something happened with that though, in A.D. 591, Pope Gregory I, he actually referred to Mary Magdalene as the sinful woman who anointed Jesus feet in Luke 7:36, 50. And she was probably a prostitute. Now, how many of you have heard that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute before she came to Christ? It's a lie.
[00:16:45] There's no evidence for that whatsoever anywhere.
[00:16:49] So it doesn't say that anywhere and we don't even know. And she certainly probably wasn't the same person as in another part of the country. However, this is without foundation of truth, and it's been that way ever since Pope said it was so I guess the Pope can there have been wilder and more exaggerated stories about her which have since emerged. In modern times, we see many outlandish claims about her in a book that came about in films, came a few years back by Dan Brown The Da Vinci Code, remember that? And he put out there, and people flocked to see this movie, that Jesus and Mary Magdalene actually had sexual relationships. They ended up getting married and they had children.
[00:17:34] And that is one of the theories and philosophies that's still prevalent because this man wrote these things. He said it's fiction. Everybody wants to believe it for some reason.
[00:17:44] So anyhow, I won't dwell further on this except to say that there's no proof of any of these things. She's classified as a saint today.
[00:18:00] She was labeled in the early Gnostic writings as the apostle to the apostles because she proclaimed to them that Jesus had been raised from the dead. And she was actually the only one who truly understood the teachings of Jesus. Now, if you go to Greece and you go to France, I think those two countries, there's actually, you can see her right arm, a piece of flesh from her skull and her whole head.
[00:18:28] These were relics that were brought about. And that's ridiculous. It's stupid, it's silly. But people fall for it all the time. And again, none of these things are found in the Bible or any other reliable documents. Just believe what the Bible says, please.
[00:18:44] Well, I'm going to pick on something here. Now, don't get mad at me, but I know many of you love the Chosen series, but ignore what you see about Mary Magdalene, okay? There's nothing factual about any of that. And she was. That would not have happened. The way she emerges there. You want to know more about it, argue with me later. So, well, the next person was Peter. And you can see, if you read the Gospels, you understand a little about Peter's character. He's the first to open his mouth almost always and even when he shouldn't. And in this passage, you have him rushing to the tomb. Now, he's not a very fast runner.
[00:19:23] I don't know why.
[00:19:25] He's older, I guess, and I know from experience that'll limit that he's not a fast runner as the other disciple whom we think is John. And there's no indication as to how long afterwards Peter actually arrived at the tomb. But when he got there, he went straight to the tomb. And there he saw linen cloths, plural, inside the tomb. And he also saw the cloth that had been around Jesus head. You see, they wrapped the body and then they wrapped one around the head as well.
[00:19:58] Now there he saw these things and the word, when it says he saw where it says he ran.
[00:20:05] And so Peter and the other disciple went forth in verse three, and they were going to the tomb. The two were running together, and the other disciple ran ahead faster than Peter and came to the tomb first, stooping and looking in.
[00:20:19] He saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Now, when it says he saw, there's three different forms for the word saw in this passage of Scripture, and there's one's used for what Peter saw, the way he saw things, one for what John, how he saw things. And we're going to talk about two of them here.
[00:20:42] They saw. There was an idea of being contemplative. It means of thoughtful processing what he was seeing. So he looked in. He said, like, well, what do you think about that?
[00:20:53] What do you know about that? Boy, that's interesting. Wonder what it means.
[00:20:58] Well, then there's the other disciple, his name was John, who wrote the book here, the Gospel of John. And he gets there first, but he hesitates to go in, as you would probably do also before you would came to an open grave. I mean, I would kind of hesitate. Peter, he just ran right in. But you have John, he said, hmm, wonder what's in there. Kind of spooky here. It's a mystery, remember? But he stooped down and the idea of peeping in, it's a light, look, is found there. And we see that he peeped in.
[00:21:33] And he could see the same thing that Peter saw. Now, he won't give his name, but he does mention that he outran the old guy. Okay? And he says it twice. Matter of fact, I think he's bragging about that. And after Peter went in, he followed in after Peter and see what Peter saw.
[00:22:00] And remember, what Peter saw was contemplative looking. And this is really different here, the word that's used for what John saw.
[00:22:09] Because Peter, remember, he saw wrapped from the neck down.
[00:22:14] You remember, he had all these wrappings and then a wrapping around the head. And what I get a picture of here, and most do, it was as if the body had evaporated out of those wrappings.
[00:22:30] It would be like a cocoon or a mummy without anything inside.
[00:22:35] Now, that's weird to me. Talk about a mystery.
[00:22:39] And John says he saw, but that saw is a word that means to understand.
[00:22:46] And he saw and he understood what he was seeing. And. And the Bible then goes ahead, let's read it. He says, Peter, the other disciple went forth. They were going to the tomb in verse four, two were running together. The other disciple ran ahead faster than Peter and came to the tomb first. And stooping and looking in, he saw the linen Wrappings lying there, but he did not go in.
[00:23:07] So that's. And Simon Peter also came in and entered the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there and the face cloth which had been on this head and, and lying, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself. So the other disciple who had first come to the tomb, John, then also entered. He saw. And what did he do? What does it say?
[00:23:29] He believed.
[00:23:31] Wow, something really happened there. That's very, very important.
[00:23:37] John, he saw and understood what he was seeing.
[00:23:43] And it says he believed. My big question is in this mystery, what did he believe?
[00:23:48] That's the big question.
[00:23:50] And some say he believed that he believed Mary's words were true. Oh yeah, she's right. I believe she's right. That doesn't fit well.
[00:23:59] And he went a step further than Peter though, in his type of belief. He saw and believed that. I think he's saying that Jesus somehow got out of that he was raised from the dead.
[00:24:11] And John is actually the first one to actually believe that Jesus was raised from the dead. Now he recognized the significance of the missing body and he knew this was not a grave robbery. They wouldn't come graves. Robbers would not come in. Well, let's unwrap this body, get him down to where he's completely naked and all slimy and gooey and then let's take him out and then let's wrap those wrappings back up the way they were before.
[00:24:38] That doesn't make sense. But that was what the soldiers said they were to explain and excuse for Jesus not being there.
[00:24:48] In other words. Well, it wasn't the wrong tomb. He knew where it was.
[00:24:53] This was not a myth. This was real. Jesus was not dead. And as a result, John saw and he believed. Now it's funny in my sick humor sometimes he was first in the foot raced.
[00:25:06] And he's happy about that, I think brags a little bit here. And now he's first again to believe of all the disciples.
[00:25:15] But here's what happened. He didn't really understand what it all meant.
[00:25:19] What's the understanding of this? And let's read further. It says he entered, he saw and believed in verse 9. For as yet they did not understand the scripture.
[00:25:31] He believed he was gone and raised. But what in the world does that mean?
[00:25:35] That he must rise again from the dead.
[00:25:38] So the disciples went away again to their own homes. I just see them scratching their heads. Well, this is interesting. Let's go home.
[00:25:47] So it's a really thing interesting thing here it's still a mystery they didn't understand.
[00:25:53] And if they really understood about the resurrection, they would have been there waiting at the tomb until the resurrection happened with excitement.
[00:26:03] Now this is evidence of the scripture in that we do not believe merely by seeing.
[00:26:10] It takes more.
[00:26:12] What does it take to really come to Christ? It's by examining the facts that you have and then the faith that we need to believe the consequence that the Bible says it's really all about.
[00:26:24] They did not yet understand that this was all a part of the plan from scripture. Now later he understood what it meant and it was just like what the scripture said. Now we're going to skim through some slides because next, according to your outlines, we have the scene of the so called crime. There's a garden and there's a tomb.
[00:26:50] And then the evidence we'll see that there you see a garden.
[00:26:54] That just means that there's a choice of the gardens today. We don't know where that garden was.
[00:27:01] I don't choose the garden tomb as the one. I have a lot of reasons for that.
[00:27:05] Go to the next slide and it explains what it was about. This is the garden tomb. If you go to Israel, how many of you have been to the garden tomb? All right. Pretty neat place, isn't it? Did you feel that? Was it?
[00:27:18] Anybody feel that? Was it?
[00:27:20] Okay, okay.
[00:27:23] I used to.
[00:27:25] It was discovered by General Charles Gordon of Gordon of Khartoum in 1883.
[00:27:31] And it was outside the walls of Jerusalem like it should be.
[00:27:35] The garden complex was found and there was actually a large reservoir for water plants were there. And then also was dated though to the first temple period which is oh what about 586 BC and beyond, 8th and 7th century.
[00:27:53] So in the same burial complex on the property of a French school.
[00:28:01] They're all from the first Temple period. Very much way too early to be of that. And there's not a single tomb from the second Temple period, time of Jesus that has been found there. There's no early history associated with it. And they didn't have comb marks on the walls that they would use in the time of Christ. The Comiles to dig it out, they went down with this peculiar instrument. They're all that way. This was very smooth. They did it another way. So it's the best site for devotional emphasis. And it's annually visited by over 500,000 people. So they're enjoying it. Now go to the next one and you got. This is the tomb of the Holy Sepulcher. I don't like this site, but I believe it's the right site.
[00:28:43] I was really disappointed when I came to that conclusion because there's a. Go inside, you'll see. Maybe go and look in the next slide.
[00:28:53] Here's why. And we'll skim through this real quick.
[00:28:57] The reason that it's probably the right site is because Hadrian, Emperor Hadrian.
[00:29:04] As early as just less than 100 years after the time of Christ, it was already a popular site to revere. The place where Jesus was raised from the dead. And he raised it, he filled it all in with dirt and then he covered that with stone to make a platform. And on the top he put statues of Jupiter and Venus to dishonor the site and keep people from going there. He did the same thing in Bethlehem, the Church of the Nativity. But this is all written about by Eusebius and Jerome, early church fathers. The edicule. Let's go to the next slide and I'll show you about the edicule. Nope, that's the garden tomb. I'll go back. Let me finish what I was looking at. Can you go back? The edicule. I'll show you the edicule. It was created around the tomb by Constantine in the 330s.
[00:29:57] And then the Persians destroyed that in 614 is destroyed completely by Hakim in 1009 AD. And then in 1099 the Crusaders came in and they rebuilt the church as it is today mostly and it's shared by three faiths. Now go to the first, next slide. This is what you see when you go inside the tomb of the garden tomb.
[00:30:20] It's the wrong type. Let me, I think I'll show it right here. The type of tombs then did not go left to right to the side. They went back in at the time of Christ. This was how tombs were built during the time of the 500s and even early up to the 8th century. So next slide.
[00:30:40] This is the edicule built by Constantine, the crusader church around it. And you enter in and show the next slide.
[00:30:48] And you go inside this little room, show the next slide and that's all that's left.
[00:30:53] Now the reason I rejected it was because I'll go to the next slide.
[00:30:58] This was what I was shown years ago as the type of tombs that are in that area. They're like kokum slides tombs. And you can see their shafts. How did the angels sit on one end and one on the other?
[00:31:13] See? And I said, well, forget this.
[00:31:15] Go to the next slide. And this is what the Arco Solea. And this is what is actually there by recent excavations. So that sold me. It's got all the history, it's got the right type of tomb, and why not? Let's move on.
[00:31:32] This is a rolling stone. So I'm showing you everything they would have seen that day. This goes back to the time of Christ as well. And you see how they would have had to bend over to look inside. All right, let's move on.
[00:31:43] And the evidence, we're just going to talk about real quick these other things.
[00:31:49] The large stone you've seen, that body was gone. That's more evidence. Burial cloths were left behind.
[00:31:56] And now we have the scriptural clues they did not understand. Go to the next slide.
[00:32:02] Okay, now just ponder that a minute.
[00:32:08] Mary had told them that somebody had stolen the body.
[00:32:12] The soldiers were told to say that the disciples had stolen the body.
[00:32:18] That was not the case. From the evidence, this was not the work of grave robbers.
[00:32:24] Now, it's easy to explain an empty tomb.
[00:32:28] Well, grave robbers, they came and took the body. And if that is all that happened, then we would never celebrate Easter.
[00:32:36] Do you understand that? But Mary, Peter and John did not just discover an empty tomb. They discovered the linen cloths that had been used to wrap Jesus body as they buried him.
[00:32:49] Now, in John 11, when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, I alluded to that earlier. We read the man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, his face wrapped with a cloth. And Jesus said to them, unbind him and let him go. And that is not what happened with Jesus.
[00:33:09] Nobody had to unbind his burial cloths.
[00:33:13] It appears again that he was able to pass through them with his resurrected body, just as he was able to later when he appeared in a locked room. And chapter in verse 19.
[00:33:29] And not only that, but the face cloth which had been on Jesus head was folded by itself. Now I'm showing you something. Anybody know what that is?
[00:33:37] Shroud of Turin. Now, that is what is offered as the actual burial cloth of Jesus.
[00:33:43] 100%, I disagree with that.
[00:33:47] Okay? There's reasons. You'll hear a lot about it, especially around Easter. But the reason is because this was one. A shroud that was folded over. You have the body laying and they used one big sheet and they would fold over it. They only did that maybe when they took him down from the cross, but this is not what happened afterwards.
[00:34:08] So it's the wrong type of shroud. They actually have here that this was an imprint of the body of Jesus. You See the handprints? It's somebody who had been crucified. The problem is it's either a fake, and even if it is Jesus, it has no meaning to the Christian whatsoever.
[00:34:28] And there's a reason for that, because there's no resurrection here.
[00:34:32] All this is saying is Jesus died.
[00:34:35] And most of us here believe that he died and he was crucified.
[00:34:39] So this gives evidence for that. But this is not anything to do with his resurrection at all.
[00:34:46] Now we see that Jesus promised in chapter two, verse 19, he said, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. And the Jews said, then it has taken us 46 years to build this temple. And will you raise it up in three days? But he was speaking about the temple of his body. Let's go to the next slide. I think that's the. That other was a negative. Go ahead. Shows the front and back. Go next to that one. Okay, well, that's the last slide. So I will conclude here.
[00:35:24] It says, therefore, when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this. And they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
[00:35:34] Now, former pastor and author Warren Wiersbee, he said, a dead Savior cannot save anybody. And all that the Shroud of Turin does is prove somebody died.
[00:35:46] Was it Jesus? Eh, I don't think so.
[00:35:50] It wouldn't. That's not the type of shroud he would have.
[00:35:54] But it.
[00:35:55] But if it is Jesus, it's a proclamation he's dead and that's the end of it. Because there's no hope in that. There's no proclamation of eternal life.
[00:36:06] But the resurrection of Jesus Christ we're as to be said from the dead is as much a part of the Gospel message as his sacrificial death on the cross. The resurrection proves that Jesus Christ is what he claimed to be, the very son of God.
[00:36:20] And if Jesus were not bodily resurrected, he was not God nor Savior. And Christianity is a lie.
[00:36:29] Now, spiritually, because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, our sins are forgiven, our life is renewed, our hope is permanent, and our eternity is secured. We're given a new start, we're given a new life and a new tomorrow. And like John, it's not enough to run to the tomb and to peer into the tomb, to enter the tomb or to see the evidence that Jesus is not in the tomb.
[00:37:05] You have to believe.
[00:37:07] You have to have faith.
[00:37:09] And as Paul wrote, if you confess with your mouth, he says the word is near you. It is in your heart and mouth, mouth and heart, that if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord.
[00:37:23] Believe in your heart. Hear that? What? Believe what?
[00:37:28] That God raised him from the dead?
[00:37:31] Then you shall be saved.
[00:37:34] It's important that we believe this. And my question I have is, are you willing to believe now? Must you believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ?
[00:37:44] There's a survey that Barna put out. Not Barna, Barna put out just a few years ago, and it found that 30% of professing Christians did not believe that the resurrection was necessary to be a Christian.
[00:38:00] Boy, are they wrong.
[00:38:03] My Greek in that comes out with a very famous Greek word that's a thought of baloney.
[00:38:07] So it's terrible. It's just terrible.
[00:38:11] And he says, are you willing now? Must you believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ?
[00:38:17] Is it really that important? Can you really be a follower of Christ and not believe in this physical, bodily resurrection from the dead? The answer is no.
[00:38:30] Like John, Peter, Mary, and every follower after them, one must come to the tomb.
[00:38:39] You look in, you examine the evidence as they did, and believe that. That God raised Jesus from the dead.
[00:38:47] Then, and only then, will you be saved.
[00:38:51] Now, the rest of the story comes next week as Pastor Duba will bring it to you.
[00:38:55] So the big answers are there, but I think we can assume that there's enough right here from the Apostle Paul. The word is near you.
[00:39:03] You come very near to it today.
[00:39:06] It really wakes you up. When you go there and you're in the tubes, that really comes to life and your imagination goes wild. But the word is near you.
[00:39:16] It is in your mouth.
[00:39:18] You've heard it come from my mouth. Today, Jesus is alive.
[00:39:22] He's real, he's risen, and he's in your heart, too.
[00:39:28] But that comes by faith. You take what you know from the scripture and the testimonies of others and you say, I believe that to be real, and I want it to be mine, to be a part of me.
[00:39:45] And that's so important. It says that if. Here's what you do. I think this was an early Christian confessional, by the way, maybe even at baptisms, that if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, He's God. That's the first part. You gotta believe he's God and believe in your heart.
[00:40:06] The heart means your mind, your thinking process, that God raised him from the dead. You will be saved. What do you believe about Jesus? Is he God?
[00:40:16] Is he the Lord?
[00:40:18] Was he raised from the dead?
[00:40:23] Then? It's possible.
[00:40:25] It's probable. It's most reliable. If you truly believe these things, you will be saved.
[00:40:31] Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.
[00:40:35] If you haven't done that. And you said, you know, I thought about the resurrection. It's.
[00:40:43] Did it really happen? Is it necessary for me to be a Christian and follow the teachings of Christ? It's absolutely necessary. If he did not raise from the dead, you are hopeless and without hope. All of us are.
[00:40:56] But he did.
[00:40:57] As the mystery has been solved and Scripture reveals the answer, whosoever will call upon them the name of the Lord shall be saved. Well, as your outline says, you'll be coming back next week and there's a couple passages of scripture you can look at this week, that is Romans 10, 9, 13 and First Corinthians 15, 12, 20.
[00:41:18] And I pray you will. If you have not received Christ, now's the time to do so.
[00:41:23] Duba is going to be here. Pastor Duba will be here and I'll be here. I'll be over here. And Pastor, you can be over here. And if you say, you know, I've never confessed Jesus as my Lord.
[00:41:36] I've never let people know that I believe in my heart. He did go to the cross and he was raised from the dead for me to take away my sin and set me free and give me new life, then you know, get it settled. Get it settled. Make your first confession today to one of us. We'll let others know you're doing the same thing. But now's the time. If you're troubled, you need prayer for those.
[00:42:01] That's why we do this, too. But we're going to have a prayer. We'll sing a song, and then we will have a time where you can respond.
[00:42:08] Lord, bless us now as we go into this time of truly an invitation and response to what you've shown us through your word. And we're thankful that we have this evidence. We're thankful the mystery has been solved long ago.
[00:42:23] I pray it'll be solved in every one of our hearts and minds today, that we will believe it's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.
