I'm being as sincere as I know
how to be. I feel so honored to be with
you. It's been such a blessed privilege
to me to hear these messages, to be with you, to be with your
pastor and his family. I'm humbled and honored to be
here. I've enjoyed it so much. Thank you. Matthew chapter 27. In Philippians chapter 3 verse
10, Paul the Apostle made this statement, O that I might know,
be personally acquainted with, have a true understanding of,
O that I might know the power of His resurrection. And I can chime in with Paul,
oh, that I might know the power of His resurrection. And it is my prayer to God that
when we leave this place, we all might know something of
the power of His resurrection. I've entitled this message, Comfort
from the Resurrection. Matthew chapter 27, verse 50, Jesus when he had cried again with
a loud voice. Do you remember what it was he
cried? It is finished. And he said it with a loud voice. The scripture says he yielded
up the ghost. Do you know he's the only one
to ever do that? No one else ever yielded up the
ghost. Everybody's died, but nobody
did this. At this time, the Lord Jesus
gave death permission to come and take him. He yielded up the ghost and he died. There is now a lifeless body
hanging on that tree. We've all seen dead bodies. no life in them, the Christ has
died. No wonder the earth quaked and
the rocks rent. The songwriter said, well, might
the sun in darkness hide to shut his glories in when Christ, the
mighty maker, died for man, the creature's sin. The Christ died. They take his lifeless body, down from the cross. We read in verse 54 of Matthew
chapter 27, Now when the centurion and they that were with him,
watching Jesus, saw the earthquake and those things that were done. You know, that's a sermon in
itself. all the things that were done
in this death of this mighty one on Calvary's tree. The scripture
says, They feared greatly, saying, Truly, this was the Son of God. They saw for sure. They saw for
themselves. This was the Son of God. This was no ordinary man who
has died. This was the Son of God, verse
55. And many women were there, beholding
far off, which followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto
him. One wonders, where was Peter
at this time? Where was James? Where was Andrew?
We don't read of them being there at this time. The fact of the
matter is they were in hiding. There were some faithful women
who were still there. You know, quite often the women
are the heroes in scripture. They were there when these brave
men were not. They're first referred to over
in Luke chapter 8. And they ministered to the Lord
of their substance. And there they were, and can
you imagine the horror and the grief they had experienced as
they saw their Lord nailed to a cross, a cruel, violent death. And they saw Him die. And there
they were, beholding a far-off Now, Joseph of Arimathea and
Nicodemus took his body down from the cross, a lifeless body, and prepared it for burial. Verse 61, we read of these women
again, and there was Mary Magdalene and the other Mary sitting over
against the sepulcher. They couldn't bring themselves
to leave it. And very early on Sunday morning, after the Lord
had been in the tomb, ever since Friday, the Sabbath was passed. They had rested on the Sabbath.
The Sabbath was passed in more ways than one. The Sabbath was
passed, and there they are at his tomb. We read in verse 1
of Matthew 28, in the end of the Sabbath. I love that verse of scripture,
the end of the Sabbath. What's the Sabbath about? It's
about resting. It's amazing how people try to
make a work out of not working. That's what they do with the
Sabbath, make a work out of not working, but the end of the Sabbath. The purpose of the Sabbath, the
goal of the Sabbath, to rest in Christ. In the end of the
Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week,
came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. Here these dear ladies are again. And behold, There was a great
earthquake for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven and
came and rolled back the stone from the door and sat upon it.
His countenance was like lightning and his raiment white as snow. I know someone who had brighter
raiment. You do too. But this angel's raiment was
white as snow. And for fear of him, the keepers
did shake and became as dead men. Now remember, these men
had been hired to watch the tomb, to make sure no one comes and
steals the body of the Lord away. So as they said, the latter error
will be worse than the first. They wanted to make sure this
didn't happen when this angel appears They are scared to death. Their knees knocked together.
They became as dead men. They couldn't respond. I love
to picture this in my mind. Verse 5, And the angel answered and said
unto the women. He didn't speak to these other
fellas, did he? What about these keepers? Did
he have anything to say to them? You see, the message of the resurrection
is not a good news message to everybody. As a matter of fact,
it's a bad news message to a whole lot of folks. But to some people,
it's a good news message to. And who does he speak to? He
speaks to these women. Fear not, ye For I know that
you seek Jesus which was crucified. He is not here for he is risen. Now we know from John's account
that Mary was weeping, and the angel first came to her and said,
Woman, why weepest thou? And her reply was, Well, they've
taken away my Lord, and I know not where they've laid Him. And
that is my response to most of the preaching I hear. They've taken away my Lord. I
don't know where He is in this I don't know where they've laid
him. But the angel said, fear not. She was weeping. Fear not. Now, these fellows described
in verse four had plenty of reason to fear, but you don't. And here's
why the resurrection of Christ makes this statement. The reason for fear has been
removed. Now what is it that makes you
afraid? What is it that makes you afraid? Well I'll tell you
what makes me afraid. I'll tell you what makes me lose
my confidence. I'll tell you what makes me shake
is my sin. If I didn't have to worry about
my sin I wouldn't have anything to fear. I wouldn't even be afraid
of death if I didn't have to worry about my sin. My sin. Sin. My sin. My sin is what troubles
me. Trouble because I'm not troubled
enough. My sin. But do you know the resurrection
of Christ says the reason for my trouble has been taken away. That's what the resurrection
says. And we're going to see that more as we look at this
passage of scripture regarding the resurrection of our Lord
Jesus Christ. I'm afraid of. There's a lot
of things I'm afraid of. I realize that. But what I'm truly afraid
of is my sin. What is it that makes you fear
judgment? What is it that makes you fear standing before God
in judgment? You know you're going to do it.
Everybody in here knows deep down one of these days I'm going
to have to stand before God in judgment. What is the one thing
that makes you afraid of that? Sin. If you didn't have sin, would
you worry about it? If you were perfect, if you were holy, what
would there be to worry about? But if Messiah is taken care
of, there's nothing to worry about.
That's why I said fear not. There's nothing to fear. I know
that you seek Jesus, which was crucified, but he is not here. He's risen. Would you turn with
me for a moment to Luke 24? I'd like us to look at Luke's
account. We get a little bit more detail as to what these
angels had to say. And this is to these two women,
and as they were afraid, now they haven't seen the Lord yet.
The only one they've heard from are these angels. And as they
were afraid and bowed their faces to the earth, they, the angels,
said unto them, Why seek ye him who lives, the living? Why
seek ye the living among the dead? Now that's a very good question. ye the living among the dead. They come to this too. Why seek
ye him who lives? You know, I don't like it when
people say Jesus Christ is alive. That doesn't sit well with me. He's alive? He's more than alive. He's life. He is Him who lives. I think it's right close to blasphemy
to say He's alive. He liveth. He is life. Why seek ye Him who liveth among
the dead? Now I want you to think of the
implications of this question. May the Lord give me grace to
apply this question to me. Why do you seek the living among
the dead? If you're going to seek life, you go to a graveyard
looking for it. That's not the place to look
for life, is it? Oh, I want to find out what life is all about.
I'm going to go to a graveyard. Well, that's not the place to
look. He's not here. He's risen. Why seek ye him who
lives in the deadness of human religion? And when I'm talking about the
deadness of human religion, I'll tell you what, a lot of folks
will go into a worship service and if there's not a bunch of
screaming and shouting going on and everybody's up, you know,
real live, what they call live worship services, that place
is dead. We need to go somewhere else. That's not what I'm talking
about. You know, somebody that looks
at things like that don't, they don't even know what life is
in the first place. They have no understanding. You know, if
you have any life, you're going to know something about deadness.
You're going to fall down Like John, when I saw him, I felt
as if he was dead. Dead. But why would you seek
him who lives in the deadness of human religion? He is not
there. You know, if you had to hear
the Word of God from John the Baptist, you couldn't hear it
in a temple, could you? You couldn't hear it in organized religion.
You had to go to the wilderness. Why seek ye him who lives among
the deadness of the human religion? Why seek ye him that lives in
the deadness of your own heart? In the deadness of your own experience?
Looking for life? Well, I'm trying to prove I've
got life. I'm going to go look back to some silly experience
I had when I felt this and I knew that. Well, I must be alive because
I remember what happened way back when. How do you know it
even happened? Do you find any confidence in
your experience? Let me tell you this about my
experience. My experience is this, and I mean this from the
very depths of my heart. Here's my personal experience.
My experience is I can't trust my experience. I look to Him. Why seek ye Him
who lives among the deadness of your own experience? What
about those old dead works? Why seek ye Him that lives in
the deadness of what you do? Look away from those things.
Why seek ye him that lives among the dead? That's a good question,
isn't it? It's not very smart to seek him that lives among
the dead. Why seek ye him that lives? He's not there. He is
risen. Look at verse 5 of Luke 24. Why
seek ye the risen, the living among the dead? Verse 6. He is
not here, but is risen. Don't you remember? Don't you
remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, saying
the Son of Man must be delivered in the hands of sinful men and
be crucified and the third day rise again? And they remembered
his words. You know, I think this is amazing, but I shouldn't think
it's amazing because I'm one of them. But, you know, I can
I can look at Matthew on at least three different occasions where
the Lord said, I'm going to be crucified, I'm going to be slain,
the third day I'm going to be raised from the dead. Now he
said that. Why weren't they there waiting
in his tomb? I'll tell you why they weren't
waiting in his tomb, because they didn't believe. How else are you going to explain
it? You know, as a matter of fact,
Matthew points out, when the resurrected Christ is standing
there before them, the Scripture says, But some doubted. There He is! But some doubted. They should have been there.
Remember how the Lord upgraded them for their hardness of heart
and unbelief there in Mark chapter 16 after he was risen because
they believed not these women who brought back this report.
Where were they? The Lord told them, I'm going
to rise from the dead. Are you saying they weren't believers?
No, I'm not saying that. I believe they were believers.
The Lord revealed himself to them. Believers struggle with this
thing called unbelief. It's evil. It's wrong. It's sinful.
It's the biggest problem you have. It's the biggest problem
I have. Unbelief. It's the sin that does so easily
beset. Unbelief. They should have been there waiting,
but he says he's not here. He is risen. I think of that
scripture in Romans 10. If thou shalt confess with thy
mouth the Lord Jesus, And what? Believe in thine heart that God
hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Somebody says, well, I don't
believe it happened. It means a whole lot more than that. The
devil believed it happened. He was there. He saw it. Don't
you reckon Satan saw him walk out of that tomb? He was watching
to see what was going to take place. He knew it took place. So what does he mean when he
says you are to believe with your heart that God raised him
from the dead? Well, Paul goes on to amplify that in the next
verse. He says, for with the heart man
believeth unto righteousness. Now here's what it is to believe
in your heart that God raised him from the dead. You believe
in your heart, and I made a statement about this I think yesterday
or the day before, Someone says, what do you mean to believe on
the heart? What's that mean? Is that just kind of a feeling?
You know, I believe with my head, but I want to believe with my
heart too. Well, the heart's the whole man. It's the understanding. It's
the affections. It's what moves you. It's the
will. With the heart, man believeth
unto righteousness. You believe that because of His
resurrection, your righteousness has been accomplished. You believe
that is the sign, seal, and delivery of your righteousness before
God, and you believe it with your heart. You understand? You
understand that Christ is your righteousness before God? Not
only do you understand it, you're glad it's that way. You rejoice
that He is your righteousness before God, and that's the way
you want it to be. With the heart, man believeth
unto righteousness, and with the mouth, confession is made
unto salvation. We confess, He is my righteousness. That's our confession. He is
my righteousness. And the resurrection of the dead
proves that God accepted what He did. Now, all my hope, all
my hope right now, this is what I believe in my heart, and I
believe in my heart because the Word of God teaches it, is that
when Christ was raised from the dead, My salvation was signed,
sealed, and delivered outside of my personal subjective experience. Is that good news to you? Salvation
accomplished by the resurrection of the dead. His resurrection
is my righteousness. He is risen just as he said. Now would you turn back to Matthew
chapter 28. Matthew chapter 28. Back to our
text. Verse 5. And the angel answered and said
unto the women, Fear not ye, for I know that ye seek Jesus,
which was crucified. He is not here, for He is risen,
and He said, Come and see the place where the Lord lay." I'd
love to picture this in my mind. Y'all come on over here, stoop
down, and take a good look into that tomb. Look in there. I want us to do the same thing.
What is there? What is there? Come see the place
where they lay. What is there? What did he go into that tomb
with? My sin. What is there? My sin, O the bliss of this glorious
thought, My sin, not in part, but the whole, Has been nailed
to the cross, and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord, praise
the Lord, O my soul! What is there A napkin folded up neatly. The grave closed. Evidence, he
lives. How is it that my sins are no
longer there? Well, when God said, their sins and
their iniquities, I will remember no more. The reason he does not remember
them is because there is nothing there to remember. But now once
in the end of the world had he appeared to put away sin by the
sacrifice of himself. Did he do it? Come see the place where the
Lord lay. What's there? Nothing. And now when a thrice
holy God looks at this sinner speaking to you, because of the resurrection of
the Lord Jesus Christ, he sees no sin. I see it. He doesn't. Nothing there. What a message! You know, when we're commanded
to reckon ourselves to be dead indeed to sin, I've quoted this
yesterday too. The reason we're commanded to
be dead indeed to sin is because we are indeed dead indeed to
sin. About what Christ did. Now would
you turn with me to Mark 16. What a message we have regarding
the resurrection. Everybody he died for, everybody
he represented, their sins are gone. The empty tomb tells us
that. The resurrection of Christ tells
us that. Oh, what a glorious thing this
resurrection is. You know, I realize people are
celebrating supposedly Easter all, you know, all over the country
and everything, and it's a, you know, spring morning. It's a
new day, a life from the dead. They never tell what it means,
you know, life from the dead. You know, springtime, life in
the air, the trees are budding and just a positive outlook on
life. It means a whole lot more than, well,
that just ain't what it means, really. Look in Mark 16. Verse 6, And he saith unto them,
Be not affrighted. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, which
was crucified. He's risen. He's not here. Behold
the place where they laid him. But go your way. Tell his disciples, and Peter, and Peter. Now why do the angels say that? You go tell the disciples, and
make sure you tell Peter. Well, I can take you back to
not too long before this where Peter had boasted, James will deny you, John will
deny you, but I won't. I won't do it. I'll die with
you. I'll never deny you. Peter, and he said, Peter, huh? Satan's desired to have you that
he may send to you his wheat. He's going to turn you inside
out, but I pray for you that your faith fail not. He
didn't say, I pray for you that you won't fall, did he? You're going to deny three times
that you even know me." And the chapter division between
chapter 13 and chapter 14 is very unfortunate. He said, you're
going to deny three times that you even know me. Let not your
heart be troubled. You believe in God. You believe
me in the same way in my father's house or many mansions, and I'm
going to the cross to prepare a place for you. Well, you know the story. Peter
denies. That he knows the Lord with oaths,
cursings and swearing, and I think of the passage in love where
even in the midst of his cursing, the scripture says the Lord looked
at. Can you imagine how he felt? I try to put myself in his place
here. He denied the Lord. Anybody in here strong enough
to not do what Peter did? Surely you know yourself better
than that. We can identify with Peter so much. Peter denied the
Lord with oaths and cursings. I mean, even with the Lord looking
at him, he lied and said, I know not the man. When Mary and Mary
Magdalene and the other Mary were there, Peter wasn't around. Peter has denied the Lord. And
Peter is off by himself. When the Lord said, Go tell the
disciples, you reckon Peter believed he was one of them? Well, you know he thought he
didn't mean me. He meant somebody else, but he didn't mean me.
You go tell the disciples and make sure you tell Peter, I've
risen from the dead. You make sure you let Peter know.
You see, the message of the resurrection of an accomplished salvation
by a victorious redeemer can only be appreciated by sinners. They're the only one who have
any understanding of it. Nobody else understands. They
look at the resurrection as well, positive outlook on life, you
know, new chance, new beginnings and all that kind of thing. But
someone who's a sinner, the reason for death, the reason for fear,
it's been removed. It's been taken away when God
raised Him from the dead. He said, I accept what He did,
and I accept everybody He did it for. And at that time, this
sinner was accepted by the thrice-holy God, received and embraced, saved. I love that passage of Scripture
in 2 Timothy 1-9 where it says, He saved us. And he called us, which came
first, the saving or the calling? He saved us. He called us with
a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began. He was raised from the dead.
You make sure Peter hears this message. and tell them that I
go before them." I go before them. Put back in our text in Matthew
28. You go quickly, Matthew 28 verse
7, you go quickly and tell his disciples that he is risen from
the dead. And behold, he goes before you
into Galilee. There shall you see him, lo,
I have told you. Now let's talk about this phrase
just for a moment. He goeth before you. Yes, he's talking about going
before Galilee, but if you look In John's account, in John chapter
2017, he says, I go before you, I go to my father and your father.
I go to my God and your God. He's not only speaking of going
before them to Galilee, where he would make himself known to
him in that physical location, but he's talking about going
before them to the father. That's what John's account says.
I go to my God and your God, to my father and your father.
I go before you. And I want you to think about
how the Lord has gone before us. He went before me in the eternal
covenant of grace when He agreed to be my surety. There isn't anything that delights
my heart any more than thinking of the eternal suretyship of
Christ. Now, He went before me and said,
I'm going to bear responsibility for that one. He went before
me. He went before me when He came
into this earth. was made flesh and kept the law
for me. Obeyed it in every jot and tittle. He honored the law of God. Somebody
had to honor the law of God. He did it. He went before me
and honored God's holy law, completely obeying it for me. And he went
before me into hell. when he was nailed to the cross
and suffered all the wrath of God as the sinner's substitute.
He went before me. And he went before me as he was
raised from the dead and resurrected. He went before me as he ascended
back to the Father as my representative. He went before me. He's going before me now in Providence.
Everything that takes place It's for the good of His people and
His own glory. He goes before you. You don't
have anything to worry about. He goes before you. You fear
death? He's already gone before you.
You see where He is. Yes, the fear of death is the
fear of the unknown, but I know this. My Lord died and He's alive
right now at the right hand of the Father, and I'm just as sure
for that place as He's already there because I really am already
there in the person of my representative. And he's going to go before me
on judgment day when my name is called. He's going to go before
me and answer for me. He's one of mine. I go before you. I go to my father. And your father, he says, you go
tell my brother. And there we were talking about
brother. Brother Greg was talking about brother. I love being brothers,
a brother to you. I love this thing of being brothers
and sisters in Christ, but you want to talk about a brother.
The Lord Jesus Christ said, you go to my brethren. He's not ashamed,
Hebrews 2 says, he's not ashamed to call them brethren. He's not ashamed to own me. You
see, I'm one with him. Nothing to be ashamed of. You
go to my brother and tell him I'm going to my father and your
father. I'm going to my God and your God. If God be for us, who
can be against us? Verse 8 of Matthew chapter 28. And they departed quickly from
the sepulcher. And I want us to notice their
emotion. The first thing that is mentioned
is with fear. With fear. Not giddiness, but
fear. When you see the resurrected
Christ, when you see what he accomplished
on Calvary's tree, When you see the holiness and the awesomeness
and the majesty of His person, here's the first response. Fear. Fear. Yes, fear, but what next? Great joy. Great joy. Oh, the joy and the peace of
believing. Oh, the joy of knowing that when
he was raised from the dead, I was too. The joy of knowing
that the resurrected Christ who now sits at the right hand of
the Father is my representative, my great high priest, my surety,
my redeemer, my husband, my Lord, my brother. What joy. Go quickly, tell his disciples
that he's risen from the dead. Behold, he goes before you into
Galilee. There shall you see him, lo,
I've told you. And they departed quickly from
the sepulchre with fear and great joy, and did run to bring his
disciples word." What a word that is. Amen.