1 Corinthians 15:14
“…If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless,
and so is your faith.”
The Resurrection - the single most important event in human
history, without a doubt the most incredible event in human history.
Consider the evidence, the historical evidence and the
evidence of logic that support it.
Because if it doesn’t hold up under careful scrutiny, if the
evidence doesn’t support it, then our faith is useless. Our hope is buried with
him. Our salvation is lost. Kinda important stuff, wouldn’t you agree?
Jesus was born of a virgin. He came from heaven. He laid
aside his glory and took upon himself the form of flesh.
I know that sounds incredible. It is incredible! But it
really happened. The Word of God records it.
Being God, he became
a man and walked among us. He taught and he healed and he calmed the seas and
he raised the dead.
He did things that no mere man could have done, because He
was the Messiah. He is the Messiah. The Chosen One, the Son of God.
He was rejected by
his own people, and was flogged and spit upon, and stretched out on a cross and
crucified. For us. For you. For me.
He died for us.
He took our sins upon himself and he bore the penalty for
them. He paid a ransom for us.
And they laid him in a borrowed tomb. He didn’t need it for
very long. Only three days.
He was dead. The Romans knew how to kill people.
They were experts at it. They were professionals.
The military unit who took him out there to that place and
nailed him to that cross had executed many such condemned men.
They didn’t make
mistakes. He wasn’t mostly dead… He was ALL dead! He was completely dead.
On the third day, on Sunday, the women came to the tomb. It
was empty. He wasn’t there.
He rose from the grave. He really did! He is alive!
Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, our Lord and Savior. He
lives.
He showed himself to his disciples. He showed them his
wounds. He counseled and comforted them. He ate with them. Once He appeared to
over 500 people at once.
Finally, after forty days, he took his disciples out to the
Mount of Olives and he told them what they needed to do.
Make disciples, baptize them, teach them what I have taught
you, to believe, to love, to be disciples who make disciples. He promised that
he would be with them and with us always.
And then he ascended back to heaven, where he sits at the
right hand of God, until he returns again one day.
These events
occurred. It really happened. It has been studied and analyzed and attacked and
deconstructed and still it stands as the most significant event in history. It
cannot be explained away. I invite you to examine the historical evidence.
To deny the Resurrection of Christ is like trying to deny an
atomic explosion.
The impact of the
resurrection of Christ is just as evident in history, as are the rippling
impact waves, and the fiery cloud that rises from the center of a nuclear
explosion.
There is no other way
to explain the sudden, immediate, and continued rising of Christian faith in history,
the ripples of transformed lives, the shock waves that emanated outward from
Calvary, overthrowing kingdoms and liberating the lost, the least and the last
of every race and culture, ever since… not with force, not with the sword, but
with love. The love of Christ, what an amazing gift.
Jesus who did this amazing thing for us.
There’s no way to explain the explosion of Christianity
without the Resurrection.
Consider this. Consider this one fact:
All of his disciples,
all of the men who became apostles for Christ… they all died proclaiming the
gospel facts… that Jesus was the Son of God and that he was crucified, and rose
from the grave and ascended into heaven, before their very eyes.
All of his disciples,
except John, were murdered for their belief in Christ.
James, the son of Zebedee
was beheaded in Jerusalem in 44 AD, the first of the disciples to be martyred.
Andrew was crucified on an X shaped cross.
Phillip was crucified in AD 54.
Matthew was killed by an axe in 60 AD.
Peter was crucified upside down outside of Rome in 64 AD.
Bartholomew was skinned alive and then beheaded near the
Caspian Sea.
Thomas was killed by spear in Madras, India in 72 AD.
James, son of Alphaeus was stoned, and then clubbed to death
at age 90.
Jude was crucified.
Simon the zealot was crucified in AD 74.
Matthias, the replacement of Judas Iscariot, was stoned and
beheaded.
Now I want you to
think about something.
Men will lie about a lot of things. They will lie for many
reasons.
And men will die for
a few things. But men don’t die for lies.
At the end, they tell
the truth. They only die for what they believe to be true.
Every one of the twelve apostles died professing the facts
of Jesus… that they had seen, and that they had lived.
Their lives were given for this truth. Their lives were
spent preaching this truth. Because it is true!
The word, Martyr comes from the Greek word Martys, which means witness.
They died because they were witnesses of the events of
Jesus’ life and death and resurrection!
He made us and he bought us. We belong to him, whether we
like it or not. We belong to him.
But he has left us the decision, whether to accept his gift
of life, whether or not to accept his Lordship.
The bible says that
one day, “every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess, that Jesus Christ is
Lord”, but for some who bow on that day, it will be too late to claim the
inheritance.
So we have to decide what we’re going to do about this
truth.
We are responsible before God, now that we know these
things.
Believers or those
who don’t.
Claimers of our inheritance or those who reject it.
We have to choose which side of that fence we are going to
stand on.
That’s why we are
here, and that’s what this whole deal is about.
He is Risen…you’re move.
MJS