Well, secular scholars don't believe in the resurrection, but they do agree with Christian scholars on this, that the central affirmation of the church of the first century was the bodily resurrection of Jesus, that that is what the Christians really believed. That's what they really proclaimed and taught, even the enemies, witnesses of the gospel speak of that pernicious superstition that these Christians believe in this one Christus who they say is alive, but the others say is dead. And that was the way that faith was summarized in the hostile witnesses in the first century. So we know that this was the central doctrine of the early church. They said, Jesus is Lord, Jesus can only be Lord if He's alive. So it assumes even that simple, Jesus's Lord confession of faith assumes that Jesus is risen, for He can't be Lord if He's dead and in the ground. In fact, I would say that the bodily factual resurrection of Jesus Christ is not only the most important doctrine of Christianity, it's the single most important event in the history of the world. Because if Christ does not rise from the dead, then the human race has fully and finally failed, and it must be cursed forever so that his death really would have been the end of existence. Because if he did not rise, then he did not conquer death. And if he did not conquer death, then he did not conquer sin. And if he did not conquer sin, then God's wrath for sin was not satisfied. That means God's wrath would fall upon this world. And that earthquake that occurred when Christ was on the cross would have torn apart the earth because there would have been no reason to delay it at that point because there would have been no atonement. Beloved, it is the most important thing that you can know, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. What happened that first Easter morning? Something happened, as we looked in our Sunday school class, something happened, even those who don't believe in Christianity and who believe that the resurrection is a hoax or made up or a myth or whatever, they have to account for it somehow. What happened that first Easter morning? How can we understand it so as to increase our faith? That's my hope this morning that your faith would be increased, not in some story that's not real, but in the truth that you would be wrong not to believe because it is true. Let's pray as we turn to God's word. Father again, we ask you for your blessing as I read your word that your spirit would go forth ultimately, Lord, the only reason we don't believe in the resurrection is not because of a lack of evidence, it's because of hardness of hearts, and we really don't want Jesus to be Lord over our lives. So Lord, I pray that if there are any here who are under that blindness, that you would lift that veil, that you would cause them to see that he really is Lord and there's no escaping it, and that salvation is there for all who will simply just acknowledge the real, the truth that he rose again from the dead and sits and reigns with you in heaven and will return again one day. Father, help us to know that truth and help us to believe it. We pray in Jesus name, amen. Here now the word of the Lord from the gospel of Luke chapter 24, this is God's holy and perfect word. Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they and certain other women with them came to the tomb, bringing the spices which they had prepared, but they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. Then they went in and did not find the body of the Lord Jesus, and it happened as they were greatly perplexed about this, that behold two men stood by them in shining garments. Then as they were afraid and bowed their faces to the earth, they said to them, why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen. Remember how he spoke to you when he was still in Galilee, saying, the son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and the third day rise again. And they remembered his words. Then they returned from the tomb and told all these things to the 11 and to all the rest. He was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles and their words seemed to them like idle tales, and they did not believe them. But Peter arose and ran to the tomb and stooping down, he saw the linen cloths lying by themselves, and he departed marveling to himself at what had happened. May the Lord establish this word and bless it to our hearts, I pray. First of all, I want you to notice this morning that the resurrection of Jesus Christ was an unexpected event. The resurrection of Jesus Christ was an unexpected event. The disciples were not looking for a resurrection. Can you see that in the text this morning? All four accounts show that. They were not looking for a resurrection. Luke tells us in verse one, in the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they, the women from Galilee and certain other women, came to the tomb, bringing spices, which they had prepared. They were bringing spices to put on a dead body because that was the custom. That's what you did when someone had died. Now Luke, well, John actually tells us, but all the gospels mentioned that Joseph of Arimathea had asked for, received permission to put Jesus' body in his brand new tomb that he had dug out for himself, and that he had already embalmed Christ and wrapped him in these linen cloths with a hundred pounds of spices. The Bible says, Nicodemus was with him, Nicodemus and Joseph, or Nicodemus, and I'd say that all the time Joseph of Arimathea were members of the ruling council, so they're part of the Jewish ruling council, but they were secret disciples because whenever they would speak in favor of Jesus, if you remember the gospel stories, the others would say, are you two from Galilee, or are you also like him? And they would try to really attack them if they supported Jesus in any way. So they were secret disciples, but when he died, they plucked up their courage and they asked for Christ's body in order to at least give him an honorable burial. But they did it because they thought he was dead. They knew he was dead. The women knew he was dead. Jesus enemies knew he was dead. The Romans knew he was dead. They knew that he was dead and nobody was expecting, at least his followers were not at all expecting, anything to happen, except to go, and to anoint his dead body. The women were bringing more spices, no doubt just as we bring flowers. When we go to a funeral, or when we go to a grave, because we want to pay our respects, and we want to show our affection. So the women were bringing even more spices, maybe to put on top of the Christ's body, or to perfume the tomb, because in those days, as the body decomposed, it would give an odor, and so that's why they would wrap them in these spices so that you could go and visit without the smell of death in the air. But the Bible tells us that there were different women that went. Luke tells us later, he names three of them, Mary Magdalene, all the Gospels mentioned Mary Magdalene, three of the Gospels mentioned the other Mary, sort of sad if you're just the other Mary, right? You're not the, oh, I'm the other Mary, you know, not the famous Mary Magdalene. They're all famous to us. But Luke mentions Joanna, one of the other Gospels mentioned Salome, and Luke says other women, so there's at least five. Luke says three, and then other women plural, so there's at least five. There's probably six or more. And they go, no doubt, when they leave, the Gospel writers give different times. One says that it was still dark when they left, that's John. Mark says that the sun had risen upon their coming to the tomb. It's actually an heirs participle when they had come to the tomb. It's the same word, though, aircomy in the Greek. And the reason why I bring that up, because in Greek language there's not a word to come and to go, there's one word, aircomy, it means to come more to go. And that's important because if you read in the Gospel of John, sometimes you'll read, it was still dark when they came to the tomb. And then in the Gospel of Mark, you'll read the sun had risen when they came to the tomb, and scholars will say, well, there's a contradiction. There is no contradiction there. Because if you wanted to say it was dark when they went to the tomb, you would say it the same way. Now in English, it gives a slightly different connotation, right? When I say I went somewhere, you think of the starting point. When I say I came somewhere, you think of the ending point, but it's the same word in the Greek text. So we know when we read in John, that it was still dark when they aircomy, when they came, it was actually when they went. That's the way we should translate it. It was dark in other words when they left their homes and walked the 20 to 30 minute walk from the residential section of Jerusalem where they were staying to the place where the tombs were. And we have different people leaving. We have some of the women who are mothers of grown sons, they are older women. They're carrying spices, Mary Magdalene's a young woman. There may have been other young women, but we don't know for sure. And I don't know about you, but when you go somewhere, now they're all leaving their homes, maybe they had an a pre-arranged appointed place, but probably they didn't. And they were different groups of women that left and probably came to the tomb at different times as well. I know we always go to Geneva in the summer on vacation and we go down to a place called the center, and it's got a bunch of shops and restaurants and video games and stuff like that. And we'll start off with, you know, our family, the six of us and then some of Robin's cousins and aunts and uncles and there'll be a whole group of us that will start off. We all cross the road together. It's only a ten minute walk. By the time we get to the center, or close to it, I can see usually two of my kids way up in front, one or two other kids in the middle, me and maybe a couple of kids, some of the other adults and then adults pushing strollers, we're fanned out several minutes apart just walking ten minutes. Now, how do you think it was when the women all went to the tomb? They were probably getting to the tomb at different times during the morning as well. And I say all that to say that the critics will look at these accounts and try to argue that they contradict one another. When if you're simply going to be honest, and I'm just saying, you know, even if you don't, even if the accounts are wrong, let's just hypothetically say Jesus didn't rise from the dead, you still would have to admit that there is no contradiction in what they say. An honest, unbiased person would admit that there is no contradiction in saying, as Mark says, the sun had risen when they having come to the tomb, he makes it clear, they got there when the sun had risen. John says there was dark when they went to the tomb, when they're leaving it still dark. Matthew says in the dawning, Luke says very early in the morning, four different ways of describing the exact same time of about a 20 to 30 minute period, when in the beginning the sun was still under the horizon, and by the time they get to the tomb, at least some of the groups the sun had risen. There's no contradiction there as any honest person would admit, and there's no contradiction in who went to the tomb. And yet these sorts of things are pointed out over and over again, I mentioned before when I was at Penn State in the late 80s and early 90s, we had to take a religious studies course, and in that religious studies course we looked at several different religions. And we looked at Judaism, we looked at Christianity and Islam, and I think Hinduism and Buddhism and maybe Baha'i and a few other things. And you spent so much of the semester on each religion, and basically what we did was we learned about the basic beliefs of each religion. You don't have a lot of time to spend on each one. So like for example in Islam, we learned the five pillars of Islam and some of the other things, but that was the focus in Judaism, we learned the basic practices of Jews today. For Christianity, and I'm not kidding, at Penn State Main Campus University Park, for Christianity the focus of the lecture and the lesson for whatever it was two weeks or whatever we had on Christianity was we took the four gospel accounts of the resurrection, and we looked at how they contradicted themselves. That was the structure. We didn't learn the basic beliefs of Christianity. We took our time under the professor's faithful eating to show how Christianity wasn't true. We didn't do that with Judaism. We didn't do that with Islam. They wouldn't critique Islam because they might die if they do that, someone might kill them. But with Christianity, we just spent the focus of the course looking at the four resurrection accounts trying to show that there were contradictions when there simply aren't contradictions. There clearly aren't an honest person would admit that Huga, if one gospel writer just mentions Mary Magdalene and another gospel writer mentions Mary Magdalene and the other Mary and Salome, unless the first gospel writer said Mary Magdalene and only Mary Magdalene went to the tomb. It's not a contradiction. If he says Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and says nothing else, it's a fact that Mary Magdalene went to the tomb, and the fact that he doesn't mention the other women says nothing about whether anybody else went to the tomb. We're not again an honest person would admit that. So the fact that so many people want to find contradictions where there aren't any again shows that vested psychological interest in having to try to disprove this event. Because they know, as well as the gospel knows, that if Jesus rose again from the dead, he is the Son of God. And if he's the Son of God, then everything he said is true, and if everything he said is true, then if he is not your Lord, you are a rebel against God. And it's important for us to see that because this is an unexpected event. The disciples were not expecting to see a resurrection. The Bible mentions here they see two men who will see our angels. And the angels tell them and question them and rebuke them. Why do you seek the living among the dead? They're carrying spices, and they're at the tomb of Jesus. They're not expecting it. The disciples didn't even go to the tomb. The women go to the tomb thinking that they're going to see a dead man. No one was expecting the resurrection. Secondly, the resurrection was an announced event. The resurrection was an announced event. It was unexpected, but it shouldn't have been unexpected because it had been announced repeatedly. That's the point of the angels' rebuke of the women in verse 5. Why do you seek the living among the dead? He's not here. But he has re-m- risen. Remember how he spoke to you? Don't you remember what he said to you? When he was still in Galilee saying the son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified. And the third day rise again. You know the gospel of Matthew and the gospel of Mark both record four times when Jesus talked about how he had to die, how he had to be handed over and betrayed, how he had to be crucified, how he had to be scared, how he had to be spat upon, and how he had to rise again on the third day four times each gospel. Luke records two times where Jesus had previously told them that, yes, I'm going to be betrayed and I'm going to be crucified and die, and I'm going to rise again from the dead. The latest account in Luke was Luke 1831, let me just read it to you. And taking the 12 aside, he said to them, see, we are going up to Jerusalem, that everything that is written about the son of man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise and then the Bible says, but they understood none of these things, the saying was hidden from them. They did not grasp what he meant. Over and over again he told them. And then when he refers to what must, what was written about me must be fulfilled, that's because the Old Testament also spoke of the fact that the son of God, that the Messiah had to rise again from the dead. We read about it in our call to worship in Psalm 16, where it says that his body would not be given over, verse the third part, for you will not leave my soul in sheol, nor will you allow your holy one to see corruption. Now David is writing that Psalm, and both Peter and Paul preach when they preach the resurrection quote that Psalm and say David could not have written that about himself because David died and David's tomb was in Jerusalem and everybody knew what it was and his body saw corruption. And so when David writes that, because God's word is true, the person that David was writing about had to be the Messiah, and in fact the Jews did have a belief that when the Messiah came he would never leave, he would never die. His kingdom would reign forever for he would stay forever. And David writes, you will not leave my soul in sheol, and I'll think about that, that means my soul had to be there for a while. That means the Messiah did have to die, and of course we read in our scripture reading in Isaiah 53 how yes he would die, and he would die specifically for the sins of the people. And so this event was announced, it was announced in the Old Testament, it was announced by Jesus himself and the angels announced it again to the ladies here, why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, he is risen. It was announced over and over and over again and yet they didn't believe. They took it figuratively, I imagine. They took it figuratively. Remember how when Jesus spoke of the 11 of the Pharisees, beware of the 11 of the Pharisees, they took that one literally and he meant it figuratively and they were wrong. And it seems like they were doing that a lot, well we can't get to upset with them, I don't think. I think that same thing happens to us today, sometimes we don't know how to take a passage of Christ as he means it figuratively or literally, you know the greatest, what can I say, the greatest dispute at the time of the Protestant Reformation, the thing that fractured the Reformation was that very thing. Do we take Christ's words literally or figuratively when he says those four English words, this is my body, it's five words in the Greek and Luther insisted that they had to be taken literally and Ulrich Swingley and Echolompatius insisted at the colloquial of Marburg that it had to be taken figuratively and the Reformation divide because of this literal figurative insistence. Here Jesus was speaking literally, he would rise again from the dead. They couldn't mount up to that, they couldn't believe it. John writes about it, he doesn't specifically say, John doesn't record how Jesus specifically prophesized it as it were but in a way, John speaks of it even more often, it's John's gospel where Jesus says things like a little while and you will not see me, again a little while and you will see me. Most assuredly I say to you, you will weep and lament but the world will rejoice and you will be sorrowful but then your sorrow will be turned into joy. So John speaks of it and sort of how it's going to impact them. John also tells us about how the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. Jesus said, I lay it down and I take it up again, no one takes it from me. I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it up and then he says, this commandment I receive from my father that the father commanded him to die and to rise again. And so over and over again, Jesus prophesied, the scriptures declared, the angels declared that he would rise again from the dead. It was an announced event, it was the plan of God. Thirdly, I want you to notice that the resurrection was a necessary event. The resurrection was a necessary event, look at verse 7. The son of man, listen, the son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men. The son of man must be delivered. Don Mar was talking in his message on Friday about the most important word of the Bible and he argued how one of the most important words of the Bible is the word atonement. He last moths in the Greek, atonement is a very important word. If I remember right, you spoke that R.C. Sproul makes the case that but might be the most important word, right? Because of the places where when we were dead and our trespasses and sinned but God, even when we were dead and I guess he makes the point of that, I would argue that there is another very important word here in the text in verse 7 and it's a tiny little word, just three letters in the Greek and the word is day and it means it is necessary and that's what you see when you see the son of man must be delivered. It was necessary for the son of man to be delivered into the hands of sinful men to be crucified in the third day, rise again, why? Because if God was going to save mankind, it was necessary because mankind has sinned against God, all of us have sinned against him and therefore because God is good and right and holy and just. Yes, he is love, but he is a holy love, he is a good love. And the God who is good love will not tolerate evil and wickedness and will not allow it to prevail and will not allow it to go unpunished even as a judge would not send a convicted criminal back out into the streets where a police officer would not just turn loose a heinous murderer. If they were a good judge or a good police officer so God who is a good God will not allow sinners to go unpunished. But then that would mean that we would all have to go to hell because we're all sinners. And so if God was going to save some sinners then there had to be someone who would go and pay that price for them. Someone had to take that wrath, take away God's judgment, bear it themselves so that the sinners could go free. That's why it says in our text, the son of man must be delivered. There's no other way for a holy God to save sinners. His wrath has to be satisfied. And so Jesus had to be delivered into the hands of sinful men. He had to be crucified and he had to rise on the third day. He had to defeat death and hell and the grave. And the scripture says that he did all of these things. That's why his resurrection is so important because if he didn't rise then he didn't do it. He didn't defeat death. He didn't defeat the grave. He didn't satisfy the wrath of God. Because that's why death is in the world after all. Death isn't a part of life. Death isn't some natural good thing. Death is the enemy. The Bible says the last enemy to be thrown into hell is death. Death is the enemy. It's not natural. It's not part of the planet. It came in as the judgment of God upon sin. And Jesus had to bear all of that judgment he had to die. The Bible says as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness even so the son of man must be lifted up that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. And the women it says in verse 8 they remembered his words and then they returned in verse 9 and they told these things to the 11 and to the rest that these things must be believed in order to be saved. Do you know that I just saw, maybe you saw it this past week, one in four British Christians. Did you see this? It's all over the place on the internet. One in four British Christians no longer believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. One in four professing British Christians. I don't know how they divided that up if it was Protestants, Catholics, everybody. But one in four who professed to be Christians no longer believe in the resurrection. That's like saying you're a stealer fan but you no longer root for the Steelers. I mean it's absurd. It's contradictory. You can't be a Christian and not believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is the foundation, that is everything. If he didn't rise from the dead Paul said we are all men the most to be pitted because we're living for one who couldn't defeat death himself. Let's eat drink and tomorrow we die get everything you can on a life because you're going to do the grave and there's no hope because he didn't beat it. You're not going to beat it. Oh beloved, it is a necessary event. Our salvation is secure because God carried out this plan that he determined finally I want to notice it's a true event. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is a true event. If we continued through the gospel of Luke we would see Jesus appearing to the two men on the road to Emmaus. Luke's the only one who records that and the Bible talks about how God kept them from seeing that it was really Jesus. It was God who did that. God kept their eyes from recognizing him. Verse 16 says that their eyes were restrained so that did not know him so that was a supernatural thing that God did so that they could not recognize Jesus so that Jesus could teach them a point about himself and about what he came to do and what he actually did and the Bible says he does that. He shows them what all the scriptures meant concerning himself. But then it talks about how he appears in the upper room to the other disciples who are there and they don't believe and they didn't believe when the women came and spoke to them here in Luke. In fact, I want to notice that. Verse 11. The women came and they told them after speaking to the angels and we know that they are angels by their garments, their shining garments, it's actually the word, it's only used one other place in the Bible and it refers to a lightning flash. It's the flash of lightning. It's not, there is a word for shining that's like a flashlight that's always shining or a candle that's always shining but a lightning flash would be something that would flash and be gone again. And I wondered because of Luke's precise language, if that is a little bit more accurate of what their clothing really was, that if it was something more of something that was white and then once in a while would flash, like a lightning bolt because the only other place that word is used is in Luke earlier, if I'm going to find it here, I'm not going to find it. Oh, here it is, Luke 1724, as lightning flashes from one part of the heaven and shines to the other, different word for shines. It's the lightning that flashes out of one part of the heaven. So the son of man will be in his day, that sudden flash of lightning. That would make sense because some of the gospel writers, they all four of them mentioned the whiteness of their robes and only a couple of them mentioned Matthew and Luke, the shining or the lightning flashing of it, that in fact Matthew says that the angel's countenance was like lightning. So maybe it was something like that but the point, the reason for that is that God is showing that these really are supernatural beings. Calvin notices that these are visible signs of his presence under bodily forms. Calvin says this, quote, when God makes known by outward signs that he is present, he invites us to him as far as our weakness can endure. So God made it clear that these were angels because we can't make clothing that does that. You know, you can get these shoes with a little flashing red lights but you kind of know that that isn't, you know, some kind of heavenly miracle. Their garments were suddenly flashing, you know, intermittently or at times it seems that way like lightning would flash and they were angels. And again, Matthew and Matthew mentions one, Mark mentions one, Luke and John mentioned two, no contradiction because they don't say one and only one, but they mention the one that speaks. I do this all the time. I'll be meeting a couple of guys and I'll say, you know, Robin should say, oh, what were you doing? I'll say, oh, I was talking to Jim and I won't mention that, oh, there were other guys there because I just want to tell her what Jim and I talked about or whatever. We always do that sort of thing or you'll say, you'll be, you know, going driving down a road and there'll be a couple of police officers or a couple of firemen. And one of them will say to you, the road is closed, you have to turn around and you'll say to somebody, oh, I had to turn around, they told me the road was closed. Why? Because there were several of them there, only one of them spoke. We speak that way. That's the proper way to speak. The others are there. They're all, you know, they're all agreeing with the message that the spokesman gives and the scriptures speak the same way. But I say that to say that the angels told the women and they saw the angels and they speak to the disciples. And verse 11 says, their words seem to them like idle tales. The word in the Greek is leiros. It's an exclamatory word like humbuck, you know, or poppycock or, you know, you'd say nonsense. Something like that. That's what their testimony seemed like to the men. It was nonsense to them. That's ridiculous. We saw him die. He could not have risen because that was the testimony of the women. And I say all that to say that eventually after these hardened, unbelieving disciples see him standing later in the gospel of Luke, they still don't believe, let's skip down. Now I want you to notice, go all the way to verse 36 if you have your Bible. Now as they said these things, you know, this is when the two from Emmaus come and they testify, we saw him. He appeared. As they said these things, Jesus stood in the midst of them and he said, peace to you. But they were terrified and frightened and supposed they had seen a spirit. They don't believe. It's a ghost. It's not Jesus. It can't be him. Verse 38. He said to them, why are you troubled? Why do doubts arise in your mind? Behold my hands and my feet. We talked about this in Sunday school and imposter could not fake the wounds in his hands and feet. This was really Jesus. Look at them. He's showing them proof, sensory evidence, proof. Look at my hands and my feet. Handle me. He says, touch me. I'm not a ghost. I'm not a spirit. Your hand won't go wistfully through me. I'm here for real. Touch me, he says. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have. When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet as if we needed that in addition to see that he actually took time to point it out to them and show them the wounds. It's really him. He's really there. It's really a body. It's really a person. He's really speaking. And how do they receive that? Because you know, they're so credulous. They're so ready to believe, right? That's what the myth makers say. The disciples had a frame of mind to believe. And so they thought they saw Jesus when they didn't see him. Actually verse 41 says a different. But while they still did not believe, they still didn't believe. They can't be. There were two for joy, right? I remember that one. As a kid, sometimes your Christmas is coming. You just can't believe Christmas is ever going to get there because you're so excited. You can't think about these things that you're looking for. Oh, it's going to be taken from me. They still couldn't believe. And Marvel, he said to them, do you have any food? So they gave him a piece of broiled fish and some honeycomb, you know, as I said, they probably threw it at him and like this, they don't want to get too close. Ghosts, ghosts might get you. And he took it in the aid in their presence. Beloved, this is an embarrassing record if they were trying to fabricate this. This is embarrassing. If you were going to concoct a story about somebody who rose from the dead who really didn't rise from the dead, you wouldn't do it like this. You wouldn't have his main disciples not believing in him, two of them not recognizing him. And you wouldn't have the testimony, the only testimony being given who were actually at the tomb being women because Jewish rabbis did not allow women to testify in court and even in Roman courts women had less rights especially earlier on. And so the testimony of four or five or six or ten women, and that's it, would make the testimony unbelievable. It would make it not credible. You wouldn't do it this way then. You wouldn't do it this way in the first century. You wouldn't make it up this way in the second century because women's testimony was not considered valid in court. You wouldn't do it this way if you were making it up. It's embarrassing. But if it really happened this way, then you would record it that way no matter how socially or legally unacceptable it might be, you would record what really happened because that's what happened. I want to go through these four points again real quickly. Just apply them each one to us. This event is true and that's ultimately why we should believe it. But first of all the unexpected event, why is that important to us? Because it shows us that it wasn't a conspiracy, the fact that nobody was planning it, nobody was thinking it, nobody was hoping for it, nobody expected it. That rules out the possibility of hallucination and everything else because the conspiracy because the disciples were not thinking resurrection at all. Even the few that had the courage to go to the tomb were going to anoint a dead body, beloved, that it was an unexpected event should sure us up in our faith. That this was not a conspiracy or concoction or hoax. It was the furthest thing from their minds. Secondly, that it was an announced event should sure up our faith because it was God's plan from the beginning. This wasn't something made up thing. This wasn't something they just decided would be a good idea. This wasn't even something that just happened in some weird and explicable science fiction way. This was prophesied over and over again in the Old Testament. We read two passages, one from the Psalms, one from Isaiah about how the Messiah had to suffer and die, how the Messiah would not see corruption, how his soul would not stay in the grave. That's what she all means, the grave. It wouldn't stay there. It would have to go there to be there, but it wouldn't stay there. And we could add verses from the prophets, we could add verses from Genesis, we could add verses from other books of the Bible that show that, yes, God had prophesied over and over again that this son of David would never die, that he would be the one who would rule over God's kingdom forever, that the Messiah would remain and never die, that Jews expected that. It was an announced event that should sure up our faith. The fact that it was a necessary event, beloved salvation is of the Lord. He had planned salvation and he pulled it off. And he said he would do it and he did it. God promised Abraham that he would bless his descendants and that the world would be blessed through his greater descendant and God swore, remember when he gave him that oath, he swore on his life as he passed through those parts in Genesis 15, it was symbolic. God was saying, I will tear myself apart if I fail to fulfill my promise to you. And we're told in the Bible that you and I are the seat of Abraham, everyone who believes is the seat of Abraham. And in a sense God did what he said he would do because the second person of the Trinity comes and joins himself to a human nature and that person who is the God man is killed. In order for God to keep his promise, it must, the son of man must be, remember Jesus in the gardener first another way, there was no other way. God said he would kill himself if he had to to keep his promises and in effect he does that as his son, the second person in the Trinity, now we know God can't die, the divine nature of Jesus did not die, but that divine nature was united the entire time to that human nature in one person and that person died. And so God carries out his promise, salvation is secure, it's a necessary thing in God did it and finally the fact that it's true beloved, that should change everything for us, that it's a true event, that it's real, that it's not a myth, that it's not a bedtime story, that it's not something we tell ourselves so that we can make ourselves feel good when we're about to die. It's a true event and in a sense it should cause you to fear because this means that death is not the end because Jesus, this Jesus who rose again is coming back and he will judge the world and all who don't believe in him will receive the wrath that he took for those who do believe in him and there's no escaping that and the truth of this should change everything if we are convinced that it's true, that should change how we live and that's why I want to impress it upon you again when you see this, I give it the back of the bolts and I hope you take time to look at it, I try to do this every year, I tweak it a little bit again this year, but I give you ten arguments, ten arguments for the resurrection, there's a lot more you could make, ten arguments for the resurrection, that it's true that it's a fact that it really happened and it should change our lives, I remember I'll close with this story, we used to do, I have to tell one Easter story, it's Easter, we used to have up it, you know I was a member, my dad at the time was a member of the naryton sportsmen's club, my grandpa was a member of the naryton sportsmen's club, naryton was this tiny little town, I mean Salzburg was the big city and naryton had, but they had this huge sportsmen's club and it was just all surrounded by woods and they would have these great Easter egg hunts every year and we would go up and they would hide the eggs and there were different sections you know for the different ages and I remember that we learned pretty quickly that there were three prize eggs in each section and the prize eggs were awesome, I mean you would get like a chocolate bunny like this, it was gigantic, so you wanted one of these prize eggs, you know, well I remember the one year they mixed it up on us, they didn't tell us and we were all looking for the eggs and you know somebody else they got the prize egg out and we knew there were two more, somebody else got the prize egg, there was one more, when the third prize egg everybody's sort of walking back, you know okay we're done, you know if you had the most age you got something, so we walked back over to the place where the guys were hanging out and they said how many prize eggs you guys find, we said three, you know like always we put three more out there, before he even finished speaking we were tearing back off into the section of the woods, the truth that impacted us, when we believed wrongly that there weren't any more prize eggs we were done, but as soon as we believed and as we knew and we believed the message, there were more prize eggs, it changed everything, I mean I know that's simplistic but the resurrection should be like that, I mean if you really believe Jesus rose from the dead, it should change your life and I think it's important to think about it every year, to think about it more often than once a year, but to think about it at least every year, to look at it, to study it, to convince yourself again because we struggle to believe, that's the thing, we believe and yet we have to say help my unbelief because I struggle, you struggle, let's look at it again, study it again, that don't have an impact in your life for the glory of God, let's pray, Father again we thank you, that when you raised Jesus from the dead you made it so abundantly clear that it really happened, that when we consider the arguments, the counter arguments, how foolish all of them turn out to be and yet there is so much evidence for the fact that your son rose again on the third day just as he said he would and that it changed the lives of that early church so that within one generation they were throughout the Roman Empire, all of them believing in something that changed their lives, Father let the power of your resurrection, the resurrection of Jesus, change our lives to again today, Lord help us to believe it more than we did yesterday, help us to grow in our faith and by your grace let that be a power within us, that we would be turning more and more from sin to righteousness, more and more worshipping and glorifying you the risen Lord and living for you knowing that you live and reign one God with Father and Son and Spirit forever, in Jesus' name, amen.