It happened. It really happened, and I'll tell you how I know on this edition of He-Lighted. Hello, this is my killer. He-Lighted, getting you home with freedom, joy, and faithfulness to Christ. Our Bible teacher Steve Brown. And here's Steve with a teaching for today. Thanks Mike, if you had your Bible open it to 1 Corinthians 15-12-19. Now, if you've been listening this week, I did something that was kind of unusual. I asked the question, if it really didn't happen, what are the implications of that? And we took some time to examine those implications without flinching. You know, one of the problems is that we think there are bunches of alternatives. Frankly, there are only two. Meaninglessness and Jesus. That's it. You say, well, Steve, you could be a Buddhist, no, I couldn't. I really couldn't. I studied world religions under a Hindu professor at Boston University. And I love other religions. I mean, there's some truth to be found in all of them. It's kind of exciting. And I love to study world religions, Bellamy-Jazam. I couldn't do that. The truth for me, and I believe ultimately, the truth for everybody who examines the evidence, is simply meaninglessness or Jesus. And so we looked at that without flinging. We looked at first Corinthians 15-12-19. Now, what I want to do on this good Friday, and generally my pastor comes in and we answer questions, and I'm going to let him off for good Friday, but he'll be a next Friday. I'm going to give you some absolute facts that I discovered that I think you'll find helpful. Sort of a faith booster as we get to it that I think you'll find helpful. But before we look at these facts, let's pray as is our practice on Friday, and then we'll dig in. Father, on this day, especially on our mind's eye, we see a strange man hanging spread eagle on crossbeams on the town garbage heap. Father, that's sad in itself, but when we realized that he did it for us because of you, we're overwhelmed. Father, help us never to be flippant about that. Help us to rejoice because he was sad, to be rich, because he was poor, to be forgiven, and redeemed, because he was willing to bear our sin on across. Father, on this day, especially, we remember, and we're glad, and we're so very thankful. Father, as we look at the resurrection, the fact that the dead man didn't stay that way today, oversee what's taught. Forgive the one who teaches his sins, they call him reverend, and he's not. We would see Jesus, and him only, and we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, this is the agenda. I've got about six or seven facts that I want to give you that have to do with the resurrection of Christ. Now, you say, I'm not a believer, I don't need this. Yeah, you need this. You listen. You say, well, I am a believer, I don't need this. Yeah, you need this, because it's very important that we go back to basics sometimes. You remember the time that Vince Lombardi, the late coach of the Green Bay Packers, had gone through a horrible Sunday's team had been decimated, and they had a Monday practice, and there wasn't a single member on that team that wanted to go to Monday practice. They knew they were going to be in trouble. Vince Lombardi stood before his team. He held up a football, and he said, with caustic humor, gentlemen, this is a football. Well, sometimes you need to, you need to go back to the very basic stuff, and this is the most basic stuff in the sense of a apologetic point. So listen up, let's check out some of these. Fact number one, the disciples of Jesus were changed because something happened to them, and they claimed that they had seen Jesus die on a cross. If you will, go back with me, not just over a mile, but over time and space to the year 33, to an uproar in Jerusalem. If you'll go there and look, you'll see a tired, frustrated, frazzled, empty board, common men and women who would stake their lives on a dream for three years, and that dream had died, and that they would go back with me, not just over miles, but over time and space to the year 33, to an uproar in Jerusalem. If you'll go there and look, you'll see a tired, frustrated, frazzled, empty board, common men and women who would stake their lives on a dream for three years, and that dream had died, and they had died. That dream had died on a cross, crying that is God had forsaken in. That was the end of a cult. There was no more sect. There was no more hope. They had set out to follow the king of kings, and the king of kings had ended up dying as a common criminal on a cross. I want you to know that they were ready to cry. Peter said, I'm going fishing. Every time he closed his eyes at night, he would hear the nails. Being driven into that man's hands and feet. He would hear his cry of agony. Every time he would close his eyes, he would see Jesus hanging on the cross. And then 40 days later, these same broken men and women who were ready to give up the whole thing, Matthew was ready to go back to his tax-collecting Peter and John back to their fishing, ready to give up their dream, were suddenly heard everywhere, and they didn't say we have some nice teachings about love from a nice rabbi who said some nice things. They said, we've seen Jesus. We've seen a dead man walking, and if you're going to investigate the facts, you've got to look at that fact. Something changed those people. Something made a difference in their life. Something really, really big happened, and I would suggest that what happened was the dead man got up and walked. It's an adequate explanation for the facts. Fact number two, you need to remember that the disciples were ready to die for the claim that they had seen Jesus. Now I can, in my greatest, biggest imagination, see the disciples getting together in a huddle like on a football field saying, man, we've got to salvage something out of this fiasco. A lot of we get together, make up a story, put it together, and agree on the essential facts and then spread it around the world. We could take up an offering, make some big bucks, at least enough to stay alive. Peter said, right on, John said, right on. Now I'm going to tell you something, that may have happened. In fact, I believe that human beings are pretty sinful creatures. In fact, I'm pretty cynical about human nature. I don't think I don't worship the older of these guys. They could have done that. But let me tell you something. That whole plan would have come to an end immediately. I mean, right then, the first time somebody said, I'm going to put you in a coffin for the dream that you had. You see, James was run through with the sword, but follow me was hacked to pieces, Paul had his head chopped off, Steven was thrown to death. Peter was crucified upside, every one of these original disciples died as a martyr, and all they had to say was, hey guys, we kind of got, I mean, we had this thing going, and we got together, and they let them go. They could have said, we lied. We made it up. It didn't really happen. And they would have let them go. But no body ever did. Not one said it didn't happen, and they were willing to die for that. Would you die for a lie, if you knew it was a lie, and you knew that every time you insisted the lie was true, somebody was going to hang you on a cross? Are you out of your mind? People are bad, but they're not all dumb. And I would suggest that when you're considering the resurrection of Christ, that there is an alternative that explains the reality, when they said they saw a dead man walking, they saw a dead man walking. In fact, number three, I would have suggested you go back and check out the fact that it wasn't only those 12 who saw it, there were 500 others. First Corinthians was one of the most highly documented and accepted letters of the Apostle Paul, and he says 500 people. Now, if one person tells you they've seen a dead man walking, you're going to call the people in the like jackets. Or, you know, if it's your husband, you're going to shut the door and make him get off the booze. If two people say that they've seen the dead man walking, you're going to think they're playing a joke on. You have 10, it's a conspiracy. But if 500 people say they've seen it, you ought to at least go down to the graveyard and check it out. And I would suggest that there were 500 witnesses, it really happened. In fact, number four, the religious and governmental institutions, which had vested interest in stopping the rapid growth of the Christian faith had a wonderful, logical, magnificent, beautiful way to bring the Christian faith to its knees before it ever started walking. You say, what's that? They go out and dig up the corpse. You know, and there are a lot, I mean all the power and all the money and all the intelligence and all the skill in the world was vested in trying to stop the Christian faith. All they had to do was produce a corpse. That's not that difficult. I mean, take three big bruises out to that graveyard, roll the stone away, go get the corpse, bring it out, and be kind of, you know, cadavers are not pleasant. But it would accomplish what they wanted to accomplish. They would just say, cut it out. You guys have been smoking something and there's something wrong with you. Look, here's the cadaver. But do you ever think nobody produced a corpse? You ever wonder why nobody produced a corpse? I would suggest because there wasn't one because that did man had gotten up in law. Flight number five of the witnesses, those disciples and the other 500 gave a witness that held true. We, in this new millennium, have this inflated idea of who we think we're sophisticated and we're intelligent and we ask the right questions. And we're not like that riff raff who had never read a book in the first century. Let me tell you something. That's extremely provincial. As a matter of fact, the people in the first century had a problem with dead people walking just like you do. And they asked the same questions that you asked. But they had an advantage that you don't have. They could go ask the witnesses. They could check. And if the witness didn't hold up, then the Christian faith would have died right there. But it didn't. And I would suggest that the reason it didn't is because the witnesses were right. A dead man got up and walked. Let me give you another fact. This is fact number six. The Church of Christ alone swept the world as a universal religion by the third and fourth centuries. I mean, there was no rival in the Roman Empire. I mean, the Christian faith absolutely took on everybody who came and beat them. They outfought them. They outlived them. But I mean, by the time of Constantine, it was in the palaces. It was in the shacks. It was everywhere. And you couldn't get away from it. Now, I would suggest the only plausible explanation is that what they said conformed to a reality and there was supernatural power that made it happen. And I would suggest further that the supernatural power was the power of the resurrected Christ. If Christ really did come back from the dead, then there is an explanation for the success of the Church. And that means that everything Jesus said about your being forgiven, about living forever, about being valuable is true. Really true. You think about that? Come in.