I'm going to do this more like
an exposition of just these verses as I go down through them. But
the title of the message, The Lord is Risen. The Lord is Risen. Jesus Christ
is alive and well. They thought when they crucified
Him, They thought that was the end of him. They thought they
had defeated him when in fact he defeated them. His death was
his victory. And the proof, the proof that
he's risen and he's seated on high, the very The very fact
that He did so is proof that God has accepted Him in His work. God has accepted Him. Now the
last thing we looked at was our Lord being nailed to the cross. And the last words that He spoke
was, It is finished. It's finished. Then he was buried
in a rich man's tomb. And now we wait. He said, he
said that he would rise again. And brethren, God is good for
his word. What he says, he will do. Numbers 23, 19, God is not a
man that he should lie, neither the son of man that he should
repent. And we ought to take this verse and put it on our
refrigerators. There's some hanging on our refrigerators
at the house. There's some verses that Vicki
has put up there. Hath he said, And shall he not
do it? Or hath he spoken, and shall
he not make it good? Absolutely, he will. Whatever
God said, he will do. And he will do it in his time. He said he would rise again.
Over there in Luke 9.22 and Mark 16.9, he said the Son of Man
must suffer. He must suffer, he must die, he must be buried,
and rise again the third day. Rise again. Remember this, a
dead Christ saves no one. The Catholics still have him
on the cross. They got Him hanging everywhere you see in Catholicism. He's hanging on a cross. He's
not hanging on a cross. He's seated at God's right hand.
Jesus Christ and besides His cross, the cross of Christ is
His sufferings. It's not that piece of wood He
was nailed to. The sufferings of Christ are the cross of Christ. Now the first day of the week
cometh Mary Magdalene early. early. It's good to seek the
Lord early, isn't it? We ought to seek Him first thing
in the morning, before we start our day, we ought to seek the
Lord early. When it was yet dark, in other
words, it was just about to dawn, and the reason why that she did
this at this very time is because it was the end of the Sabbath
if she did it before that I mean it would have been a problem
for the Jews she's breaking the Sabbath but this is the end of
it as soon as it was legal as soon as it was legal she was
ready to go out the door she was ready to go out that door
and when it was dark she went to the sepulcher and seeth the
stone taken away from the sepulcher, it was taken away, it was gone,
moved. Who was Mary Magdalene? You know
a little insight into who this woman is gives us an understanding
of why she was up early and ready to go to the sepulcher. Now there
was other women with her mentioned in the other Gospels. But John
only mentions her, and she's mentioned in the Gospels in all
four of them. But John makes a special mention
of this woman. In Luke 8-2 it says this, And
certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities,
Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils, The Lord
Jesus Christ cast seven devils out of her, like that demoniac. He put her in her right mind
and she fell in love with him. Satan had her, as he has everyone
who does not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Everyone whom God
hasn't saved, Satan has them. You know, y'all, we think of
that, we think if Satan has someone, they're going to be out here
just acting like a complete idiot. No, they walk in this room in
a suit. Self-righteousness is one of the greatest tools of
Satan, you know that? He does his most work and his
greatest damage in religion, not out there in the honky-tonks,
not out there on the streets, he does it right here in the
pulpit. Paul said that his ministers are ministers of righteousness,
self-righteousness. He said Satan changes his ministers
into ministers of righteousness. Not the Lord's righteousness,
but self-righteousness. They belong to the moral majority. I'm telling you, that's so, that's
to tell you the truth. They're not out there just doing
all kinds of, that's just, you know, listen, Men out here, men
and women out here in drunkenness and carrying on, that's men and
women being who they are. We don't need Satan for that.
Satan is in the pulpit lying on God, giving men and women
a false hope and a false refuge. That's where he does his work.
That's why John said in 1 John 4, try the spirits whether they
are of God. He didn't say try the preacher. Try the spirit by which he's
preaching because everybody that stands in a pulpit is preaching
by a spirit. Either the Holy Spirit or an
evil spirit. It's one or the other. I'm not
standing here by myself right now. And that's why John said, try
the spirits whether they be of God because many false prophets
have gone out into the world. And how do we try the spirits?
Whether we like them or not? No, we try them by the Word of
God. You take what they say What they're saying, and you take
the Word of God, bring the Bible with you, open it in, and you
do. Now, there's many places that
you don't see anybody carrying a Bible in. Even a preacher gets
in the pulpit knowing he doesn't have a Bible. This is the gate by which
we try preaching, is the Word of God. But this Mary Magdalene, the
Lord cast seven devils out of her. And over in John 19.25 it
says, Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, standing there
while he's crucified, marred, his image marred more than any
man, he's just, he's unrecognizable. There stood his mother and his
mother's sister, Mary, the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene.
She's standing there with them. But wherever the Lord is, she
wants to be there, even if it's at the cross. She was not ashamed
to own Him as her Lord with all that hatred going on. All that
hatred and animosity that was going on right there at the cross,
she stood right there. And you know what's interesting?
The first person the Lord makes Himself known to is a woman,
Mary Magdalene, and she carries the good news to the disciples.
He uses that woman to carry the good news to the disciples. The Scripture teaches us this,
to whom much is forgiven, they love much. Has the Lord forgiven
you much? You say, well, I haven't been
too bad. Well, you don't need Christ. You don't need Him. He died for sinners. He died
for the ungodly, Scripture says. You cannot keep a sinner saved
by grace away from worshiping the Lord Jesus Christ. You know
where you will find Him? at the cross, Christ crucified. Now here's something interesting.
You know, there's no fillers in the Word of God. There's no
fillers. John doesn't just say, well,
the stone was rolled away. He just has something to say. Every word in the Word of God
is inspired. And this stood out to me as I
was reading this. The stone taken away says much more than it being
moved. You think of it just, there was
a great stone, it's called a great stone, and they sealed it, but
it was rolled away. Here it says taken out of the
way. And the first thing I thought of when I was reading this, I
thought of the Ten Commandments. What were they written on? Stone. Stone, those Ten Commandments.
Thou shalt, thou shalt not. He obeyed every commandment of
God, and now it's taken out of the way. I'm not gonna be judged
by that law. I'm under God's grace. He fulfilled
that law in my place. That stone is taken away. I'll
tell you something, I'll tell you another stone's taken away.
God said, I'll remove that heart of stone and give you a heart
of flesh. That's taken away. That hard
stone, that heart that's so hard as stone, you're not impressed
with Christ, you have no interest in Christ, you're just thinking
about what you're gonna do when you get out of here. But if God
and when God removes that stony heart, you'll fall in love with
Christ. And you'll seek Him wherever
He is. If you hear about Him being in
this congregation or that congregation, if you're in that area, you'll
seek Him out. You'll seek Him out. He removed that stone, it's taken
away, and His resurrection is evidence of His work being successful,
or He would have never come out of that grave. He'd still be
there. Then she runneth with a heavy
heart. She's running right now with
a heavy heart. This woman loves the Lord Jesus Christ. And she
cometh to Simon Peter and the other disciples whom Jesus loved,
and that's John. John never mentions his name.
He just speaks of himself, identifies himself as that disciple whom
the Lord loved. Isn't that beautiful? The Lord
loved me. He knew it. He knew it. And she saith unto them, they
have taken away the Lord. I like the way she identifies
him. The Lord, my Lord. They've taken away the Lord out
of the sepulcher. And we know not where they've
laid him. Her heart was heavy. She thought they had stolen the
Lord's body. And her heart was crushed. Crushed. Because that body belonged to
the one she loved. You know, Henry said this one
time, he said, you know, he said, there's nothing wrong with when
people visit cemeteries and they visit the grave of their loved
one and they put flowers on it. The body of their loved one's
laying in that grave. You love that body because that
person inhabited that body. You know, I'm a person, I'm a
body, soul, and spirit. And someday my body is going
to be laying in a grave, and your body is going to be
laying in a grave. And she went to visit the grave, and she said,
They've stolen the Lord's body, my Lord, they've stolen it. And
Peter and John, he calls himself another disciple, They came to
the sepulcher. They believed the report that
when they heard it, they ran to the sepulcher. So they ran,
and verse four, they ran both together, and the other disciple
did outrun Peter. That John, he said, outran him.
He outran Peter. He's not bragging, he's just
stating a fact here. He's not bragging, I can outrun
Peter. I might not outtalk him, but I can outrun him. But you know what hit me, struck
me? Peter's running with a heavy heart. He denied him three times.
You know, you try to run and your heart's down in your feet. Some say because John was younger.
I don't know. But they both ran. They both ran. And stooping down,
John gets there first. And he's looking in. They stoop
down. He's looking in. And he saw the linen clothes
lying, yet he went not in. There's something you'll see
here, because in verse six, look, then cometh Peter, following
him, and went in the sepulcher, and see if the, close, lie. John was, I think John was more
reserved. I think John was more respectful.
Peter, he comes in to get out of the way, John, right in there,
he went, that's Peter. But you know what I see here?
The different personalities God's children have. And we really
do have to learn to just love one another with your personalities. I've got mine, you've got yours.
We have our own personalities. Even after the Lord saves us,
we still have our own personalities. Peter's still Peter. He's still
brash and rash. John's still John. He's still
respectful and reserved. And Peter, he just like, John
stooped down and looks in, Peter just goes in like a rocket. And then he says here, here's
what they saw. Here's what, when they looked
in, and John finally, he goes in after Peter. In comes Simon
Peter following him, went into the sepulcher to see if the linen
clothes lie, and the napkin that was about his head, not lying
with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. Why is John giving us these details? Like I said, there's no fillers.
There's a reason here. Because the Pharisees went and
said, now listen, they made a pact with the soldiers. Say that somebody
came and stole him. And that's what they said. They
said, this is what we'll say. Let's get together on this lie. Because
you've got to remember how you told a lie. That's why they ask
you several different ways when you get caught in something,
because they're going to catch you in a lie sooner or later. But they give detail here because
no thief would come in and be that neat. You ever seen a neat
thief? You see a house that a thief has broken into, they ransacked
the house. They're not trying to be a neat
freak. But all this neatness here shows that there was no
hurry. There was no rush. Everything's calm. Everything's
calm. Everything's under control. And
if it was a thief, he wouldn't be like that. That's why John's
giving these details. That you don't believe the report
that they've sent out that somebody stole the body. Nobody stole
the body, the Lord's risen. Our Lord is risen, Jesus Christ
is alive and well, seated at God's right hand, right now. Then went in that other disciple
which came to the sepulcher and he saw, listen, he saw and believed. We have an eyewitness. That's
why John's saying it, I am an eyewitness to this. You see,
there's supposed to be what? Two or three witnesses to something?
Well, there's Peter, there's Mary Magdalene, and there are
other two Marys that were there, and John. John says, what I'm
telling you is the truth. And what this John is telling
you is the truth. The Lord Jesus Christ is risen. You know what that means? Everybody's
got to deal with him. Everybody's got to deal with
Jesus Christ sooner or later. I don't have to deal with, there's
8 billion people in the world. It won't even register, really,
the people that I actually have to deal with. Everybody's got
to deal with him. All judgment's been turned over
to the Son. Everything's been given to the hands of that man,
Jesus Christ. That's why it's written in Psalm
2, kiss the son, lest he be angry, and his anger be kindled but
a little, and you perish from the way. And this is, this verse 9 shows
how dull we are. Verse 8, then went in also that
other disciple which came first to the sepulcher, and he saw
and he believed, And we have an eyewitness here because it
says on down through here that what he's saying is the truth.
He's in the latter part of this chapter. For as yet they knew
not the Scriptures that he must rise again from the dead. Well,
he told them. He told them go over to Luke
and Mark, and he's telling them he's got to suffer, die, and
rise again the third day. How spiritually dull we are. Do you remember what I preached
from a couple weeks ago? I don't. I don't. You can go ahead and say you
don't because I don't either. I have to really think about it. Tom,
usually Tom will call me hardy and he'll say, that message you
preached last week or two weeks ago or three weeks ago. I don't
even remember. I don't remember it. I have to think or look back
and see where I preached from. We're so dull. I bet if I told
you a dirty joke from this pulpit, you'd remember that if you lived
to be 100. I guarantee you, I can remember every dirty, rotten
joke I heard. But it's hard to remember the
scriptures. Isn't that something? The flesh hangs on to that rotten
stuff. It hangs on to that rotten stuff. One of these days we'll remember,
we'll have the mind of Christ and we won't have these old minds
that forget. Why do we take the Lord's table?
What does he say? Do this in remembrance of me. Do it in remembrance of me. He says here in verse 10, then
the disciples went away again unto their home. They investigated
the situation. They went into the sepulcher.
They saw the linen and the napkin and all that laying there. They
see that, then they're talking, I'm sure they're talking to one
another, and then they, well, let's go home. As you'll see
in the next chapter, Peter said, I go fishing. And the other said,
I'm going with you. But guess who stayed there? Mary
Magdalene. Mary Magdalene, the one whom
the Lord cast out seven devils. And I tell you what, when he
cast them devils out, she knew, she knew then that the devil
had her. I don't know that she knew it at that time. You know,
he's got a lot of people that don't know it. But boy, when
the Lord made her, put her in her right mind, she knew the
Lord saved her. Saved her from a great destruction.
Saved her from the power of Satan. They went home, they went home
puzzled. But Mary stood without at the
sepulcher weeping. Oh man, her heart was crushed.
Her heart was crushed, I tell you. And as she wept, she stood
there and wept. She said, I'm not going home.
She just wept and wept there. And she stooped down. and looked into the sepulcher.
She just didn't let it go, wouldn't let it go. My Lord's body was
supposed to be in there. The others went home. She stayed.
She was weeping. I tell you what, we have a high
priest that can be touched with our infirmities, don't we? He
felt her heart. He knew she was weeping. We'll
see here in a second. The others went home, and she
stayed. She weeped, and the Lord appeared to her, and comforted
her heart. You know, sometimes if we'd stay longer, we would
receive the blessing of His presence. I thought of that. I thought,
sometimes we leave too fast. Sometimes we do. And she seeth
two angels in white sitting. He didn't appear to those disciples. They appeared to Mary Magdalene.
They didn't appear to them, the disciples, at that time. But
two angels in white sitting, the one at the head and the other
at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain, they had one
on each end. Here are His servants, here are
His messengers. It is written over in the Scriptures
that there was an earthquake and the angel rolled away the
stone, took away the stone, moved it over. The Lord, when He arose,
He didn't move the stone. Now listen, His servants did. Let all the angels of God worship
Him. Service is a part of worship. Our service, not just right now,
but when we leave this room, and we serve Him every day, don't
we? That's a part of worship. That's
a part of worship, serving the Lord. And the angels were his
messengers, they were his servants. And they came to roll the stone
away to let their Lord walk out. He walked out of that tomb. You
know, when Lazarus came out of the tomb, he came out of the
tomb what? Wrapped in grave clothes. And the Lord said, loose him
and let him go. It takes us a lifetime in sitting
under the gospel to get the grave clothes off. But when he walked
out, he had none on. He had none on, that was over
with. He walked out of there gloriously. They buried a man that was unrecognizable. He walked out a man whose body
was perfect. They beat him to the, as you
read in Isaiah 52, his visage was marred more than any man.
When he walked out, You know the last sight Mary Magdalene
had of him was hanging on that cross and mutilated, just mutilated. Unrecognizable. That's the last
time she saw him. And it might be why she didn't
hardly recognize him when she saw him here. I don't know. But this stone also was rolled
away showing his acceptance. He didn't roll away, God sent
him to roll that stone away because his work is accepted, his person
is accepted. And they say unto her, Woman,
the angels say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? Why are you
weeping? If you'd have believed God, you
wouldn't be weeping, you'd be rejoicing, you'd know He's risen.
A lot of our weeping is because of our ignorance. Is that too
hard? A lot of it is because of our
ignorance of the Word of God. And they said, A woman, why weepest
thou? She said unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord,
and I know not where they have laid him. My, what love, my, what love
she had for our Lord, for her Lord and our Lord. I thought this, I thought we
ought to weep today for Christ has been taken away from many
of the pulpits. Many of the pulpits this morning,
the Lord's not in it. He's been taken away from them.
They got every other piece of garbage going on, but not Him.
They're not glorifying Him at all. And when she had thus said,
she turned herself back and saw Jesus standing and knew not it
was It was Him, it was Jesus. She may have not looked up, she
may have just been crying so hard. Have you ever cried so
hard you couldn't see? Have you ever really wept that
hard that you just couldn't see? That may be why she's weeping
so hard. Her heart's so crushed, weeping
so hard, she really couldn't discern who He is, who He was. I don't know. As I said, the
last time she saw him, his visage was just marred, marred. He didn't look like a man. But what a change, what a change
after his resurrection. You remember when he was on the
Mount of Transfiguration and Peter, James, and John saw him
standing there with Moses and Elijah, they said he glistened,
his clothes glistened. Go over in Revelation and read
of His appearance. What a change the Resurrection
makes! Just wait until we are raised from the dead. This corruptible
must put on incorruption. This mortal must put on immortality.
We are buried, this body is buried in corruption. If I live long
enough, if I live long enough, I will eventually outlive my
mind. I'll outlive my health. I'll
outlive my money. And it'll be buried over there
in the cemetery. At least I think it's going to
be over there. But it'll be buried over there. And it'll be a body
of corruption. And it's going to rot. It's going
to stink. It's going to go back to the
dust. You don't want to dig it up. But that body that's gonna
come out of there, that new body, is gonna be a powerful body.
It's gonna be a body like my Lord's. 1 John 3.2, Beloved, now are
we the sons of God. It doth not yet appear what we
shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be
like him, for we shall see him as he is. Philippians 3.21, this
is a good one. Speaking of Christ, who shall
change our vile body? That's what this body is. You get older, you learn that,
don't you? THY BODY, THAT IT MAY BE FASHIONED
LIKE UNTO HIS GLORIOUS BODY." You know, we'll see this a little
later on, it may be one of the other Gospels, but He appeared
to the disciples when talking to them, and then it says He
VANISHED out of their sight. I don't know how to explain that,
but you know, we're going to be fashioned like unto His glorious
body. We have things coming we can't
even BEGIN to imagine. Even with that new body, that
POWERFUL body, it never grows tired, never grows old, and it's
POWERFUL. Unbelievably POWERFUL. According
to the working of his According to read the whole thing who shall
change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his
glorious body according to the working whereby he is able Even
to subdue all things unto himself. How's that gonna happen? I don't
know but it's gonna be done by his power You know right now
he's subduing all things to himself. That's what the Word of God says
in 1st Corinthians 15 It's 14 15 That right now Jesus Christ is
subduing all things unto Himself. And when He has subdued all things
to Himself, He's going to deliver up the Kingdom to God, God the
Father. He's subduing all things. He's
subduing me and you who believe. He subdued me almost 50 years
ago. He subdued me. He broke me. He broke me. He broke the wild
ass' skull. He's able to do it. He can save
the vilest sinner with just a word, live. And Jesus said unto her, Woman,
why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou? She supposed
him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, I had to write
out by this, SINNERS SAVED BY GRACE WILL EVEN CALL THE GARDENER
SIR. Because nobody's above, they
are above nobody. She looks at that gardener and
she calls him sir. And you know what, that's a good, she thought
him to be the gardener. He is a gardener. He's taking
care of his father's garden. Isn't he? Isn't that something? Adam fell
in a garden. Christ died and was buried in
a garden. And she thinks he's a gardener. He is. Are we not
trees planted of the Lord? And Isaiah said, we're not the
planting of the Lord. He planted us. He's the gardener. He's the gardener. She said it
right. If thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast
laid him and I'll take him away. Just tell me. Even after his
resurrection, there was no pomp and display. He just stood there
in front of her. Jesus said to her, she didn't
recognize him. Now, this is beautiful. She didn't
recognize him when he spoke to her, when he started speaking
to her. But when he called her name,
she recognized that voice. His voice hadn't changed. The
voice hadn't changed. It's still the voice of her master. And Jesus said to her, Mary,
Mary, she turned herself cause she had her back to him. She's
been over weeping. He said, Mary, she recognized
his voice. You know, he said, my sheep hear
my voice. My sheep hear my voice. Every
sheep here will hear his voice this morning. Every one of you. And she said unto him, Rabboni,
which is to say, Master, Master, if he's not your master, he's
not your Savior. If he's not your Lord and Master,
he's not your Savior. Everybody today is to accept
Jesus as your personal Savior. That's not so. Bow to your Lord. Bow to your Lord. She said, Master. Master, for so He is. And if
He's not your Master, He's not your Savior. But if He's your
Master, He's your Savior. Let me ask this question. Does
the Lord Jesus Christ have your heart like He had her heart? Does your heart ache to find
Him? Does it ache to know Him? Have you seen my Beloved?" And
Shulamite said, Have you seen my Beloved? Where your treasure is, your
heart is. Now I'm going to close. And Jesus said unto her, Touch
me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father, but go to my brethren. This is so sweet because they
all scattered and left him, but they're still my brothers. They're
still my brethren. And say to them, I ascended to
my father and your father. He's speaking here as the man,
as the mediator, as the God-man. And I go to my father, your father,
and to my God and your God. Same one. But he said to her,
don't hang on to me right now, because she fell at his feet.
If you read the other Gospels, they fell at his feet. And I'm
sure she grabbed him by the feet. She didn't run up and kiss him. She grabbed him by the feet.
She said, this is where I belong. Mary sat at his feet. Grabbed him by the feet. But
he said, don't hang on to me right now. I'm gonna be here
for a little while. He was there for what, 40 more
days? It was above 500 people saw him
once, and Peter, the disciples, and you know, he was seen by
some people. But listen, don't hang on to
my physical presence. We worship him in spirit and
truth. He's gonna be gone in a little while, now what? He's
still gonna be with us. I SINNED! First he had to descend,
but now he says, I sinned unto my father, your father, my God,
and your God. The Lord Jesus Christ right now
has taken possession of heaven for you. You know that? He has ascended to the right
hand of God. He has ascended and went into
the Holy of Holies. There as our representative,
there as our high priest, there as our sacrifice, there as our
atonement, there as everything we need. He's taken possession
of heaven for all those whom he died, for whom he died. And
Mary came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord. I've
seen the Lord. Have you seen the Lord? She said,
I've seen him. I've seen him. And that He had spoken these
things to her. She's happy now. She's happy
now. She became a witness of what
she had seen and heard. That's what witnessing is. It's
not being a theologian. It's just telling what you've
seen and heard. What the Lord's taught you. Our Lord is risen,
He's ascended on high, He's with our God and His God, our Father
and His Father, and He's there, He's risen. Now, if that doesn't
give you comfort in the midst of all this turmoil that's going
on, if that doesn't give you comfort, nothing will. My Lord is risen.