As you can see, we've got this
picture. We've got a picture graph here for
you that you can look at. And that kind of lays everything
out. And it's also got the verses down here at the bottom that
kind of give you a coincide, you know, where each one of these
little pinpoints are showing you what happened on each part
of the day. It coincides with these scriptures down here, so
you can go and see where the scriptures are at. So you have a picture there of
everything that happened. Here's also just a list of the
events of Christ's final week, starting with Friday, where he
goes to Bethany, and then works his way down until he rises from
the grave. All the verses it shows that,
but it also is showing where the crucifixion was on a Wednesday. You guys can take a look at that.
And then this last one that I showed you guys is, basically, I've
handed this out for several years now. Matter of fact, I don't
even remember where I got this. I got this from another brother's
website that's a friend of mine. I can't remember which one it
was. I think it was... I can't remember if it was Sing
Lau from Philippines or... yeah, Philippines. Anyway, basically
this is just showing some of the reasons why we do not hold
to Easter. You know, the word Easter, The
whole surroundings about Easter all come from pagan origins.
And, you know, that's why we don't have, you know, do Easter
bunnies. That's why we don't have Easter
egg hunts. That's why we don't do sunrise
services. You know, I don't know, some
people, we used to have, growing up, we would have sunrise services
where people would come on Sunday morning and they would get up
to see the sun come up because that, to them, was the point
when Jesus, you know, rose from the grave. You know, it was at
the breaking of the dawn, which is not true also, according to
the Bible. He actually rose at dark time,
at the beginning of the first day of the week, which was actually
at night time. Because in Jewish time frame,
the night was the beginning of the first day, or beginning of
the day. And we'll see that here in just a minute. But anyway,
so if you look down there, you'll see all the stuff about the paganism
associated with Easter, about its name, how it got its origins. It also goes through some of
the traditions around Easter, like rabbits, why is there rabbits? Why is there sunrise services? Talks about Good Friday. eating fish on Friday. Why do
people eat fish on Friday? Hot cross buns, now that was
one I've said, I never did hear about growing up. I never heard
about hot cross buns, but I guess that was a thing. And then you'll
see where this is tied in with the Catholics mass, their mass. probably one of their biggest
mass days of the year. And so anyway, just kind of read
through that. I won't go through that again.
I've done that on several occasions here. And for those who are new,
you can just read through there. But I would encourage you to
read those scriptures that's attached to this as well and
study that out for yourself to make sure that it accords with
the word of God. Because like I said, You know,
I can be in error, any man can be in error, but we try to do
everything as close as we can to the Word of God as much as
we are enabled by the Spirit of God. And so there's some tools
for you to look at. This morning, however, though,
and for those who are on the live stream, have you ever started
that? For those on the live stream, we started a little bit late
because we had some things that we were watching just pertaining
to our congregation. I wanted to look this morning
at the reason why we believe that Jesus died on a Wednesday. And I know to some that may be
watching or listening, they say, why spend a whole sermon preaching
on that or talking about that? That's irrelevant and everything. Well, number one, the Bible says
that all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable
for doctrine. Okay. And we talked last week
about the importance of doctrine. We've seen last week that doctrine
is very important, that the Bible tells us that we need to watch
our lives and our doctrine closely, that if someone comes and doesn't
have the doctrine of Christ, that we're not to receive them.
Well, the teaching about Christ is very important, and the Bible
has some things to say about what happened whenever Christ
died. If you remember, many times throughout
Christ's ministry, the leaders tried to kill Jesus, and he never
did allow them to do that. And whenever that would happen,
he would say, my time has not yet come. Now, the only reason
he says that is not just to fill in some words, but the reason
he said his time has not yet come was because there was an
appointed time ordained of God for him to be crucified. And
that ordained time was not only an ordained time before the foundation
of the world by God just in him ordaining a day for him to die,
but it also was in an accords with all the Old Testament types
and foreshadows. Jesus came and he even said,
he said, I did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill the law. He didn't just come and say,
okay, the law is done. No, he came to fulfill all of
that law on our behalf, and once that law is fulfilled as our
substitute, He would die for us according to the law, according
to the Scriptures, as Paul said in Acts, or excuse me, as Paul
said in Corinthians. He died according to the Scriptures,
and in dying according to the Scriptures, He became our substitute
so that everything the law demanded, everything that God's justice
required, was laid to our account because Christ fulfilled all
the law. And he did it all for us. And
so the day on which Jesus died is important because it falls
along with all the times and the foreshadows and the feasts
and the festivals that God gives for Israel to uphold and to keep. And Christ, he isn't going to
come in and just blow that out of the water and just all of
a sudden not do something after he's already lived his whole
entire life in keeping everything, fulfilling everything of the
law. Jesus even said, you know, everything that the Father has
given me to do, I've come to do. You know, I've done everything
that the Father's told me to do. Everything that the Father
has required, I've done. And why now is he going to stop
and say, well, I tell you what, I know that the Old Testament
says that the Lamb and the Passover was on the 14th day. But we're
going to wait and we're going to do it on the 16th day or the
15th day. OK, that's not that's not how
it worked, you know. And so there is some importance
to it. Now, am I going to am I going to not fellowship with
somebody who believes Christ died on Thursday or on Friday? No, I'm not going to break fellowship
with somebody like that. Am I going to try to encourage
them in the truth of what the scriptures say and maybe point
them to the scriptures or if they can come and they can correct
me with scriptures? Now, I'm not going to be correct
about men's traditions. I'm not going to listen to that. And
I'm not going to listen to some theologian who's trying to twist
words and make words sound like things that they shouldn't be.
If God's word supports it, then I'll listen to that. As long
as the Holy Spirit teaches me and corrects me, I know that
I often have errors. So that's why we want to look
at God's word and let God's word develop the timeline in when
Jesus died. And again, like I said, I'm not
going to break fellowship with anybody like that. So don't think
anybody's watching or listening or anybody here think that I'm
getting on a high horse about Wednesday crucifixion. And if
you don't believe that, then I'm not going to have anything
to do with you. That's not true. Uh, and everything. So, uh, but it is, I do think
it is important, uh, as is everything in scripture is important. So
where do we begin looking at this topic of, and by the way,
we do this every now and then, we do expositional preaching
through the scriptures, but occasionally we'll do topical things, and
sometimes we'll do just teaching things that is really not a,
you know, necessarily what someone would call a preaching, but it
would be just kind of a teaching of some things as we kind of
categorically look at something and go through the scriptures
trying to find and see what all the Bible teaches about that,
and that would be what we'd be doing today. So where would we start? If we're
saying that Christ died on a Wednesday, and that that's very important,
where would we begin to look at the account of where Jesus
has clearly taught and that we can clearly go and look at and
begin to see what he meant by what day he was going to be crucified
and what day he was going to be resurrected. Now, we already
know very clearly what day he was going to be resurrected on,
right? The Bible is very, very, very clear on that. The Bible
says that he rose on the third day, And the Bible also says
that it was as it began to dawn towards the first day of the
week, right? Now, traditionally, everybody says, well, that's
Sunday. He rose on Sunday morning. Daytime, as the dawn come up,
as the sun come up. But that's Western thinking.
That's United States thinking. That's Roman Catholic thinking,
okay? That's not that's not biblically
thinking, that's definitely not Jewish thinking, right? And we're
going to learn that here this morning, Lord willing. So, would
we start with the New Testament? Well, many would say, well, that's
probably where we ought to start, but I'm going to start this morning
at the Old Testament. And we're going to look in the
Old Testament at a few things, because I want you to understand,
we've got to get a mindset that's not Americanized, okay? A lot of the things that we think
about the Bible often come because we are thinking like Americans. We're thinking like Western people. We're thinking like modern-day
people and not how this was written to the people that it was written
to or how it began. And so let's look this morning. So turn with me, if you would,
to Genesis chapter 1. Genesis chapter 1. Now the reason
I want to start here is because one of the disagreements, whether
it's a Thursday or whether it's a Friday, whether it's a Wednesday
crucifixion, all comes down to the term three days and three
nights, right? Some people say that three days
that there, as we've seen on the video that we watched a while
ago, that three days they will say, well, the Jews used to determine
that, you know, a part of a day was a day. Okay. And I've heard
that, I've heard that argument said. Matter of fact, I used
to use that argument, by the way, back whenever I believed
in a Friday crucifixion, I used to use that same argument that
they use the day as part of the day. Okay. And then there'd be
those who would say that you start at a certain time, but
they use midnight to midnight, which is our time frame. But let's look at what the Scripture
says. In Genesis chapter 1, we always want to establish everything
by how God defines it, how God sets it up, what God says about
it, right? We don't look to the theologians. We don't look to the historians. I don't care what you pull up
in history if the Word of God contradicts that. The Word of
God is the truth. Men's histories often are found
full of lies. You just take a look. I've got
a library half full of history books on the church. And probably
three-fourths of those books disagree with each other about
how church history is. They disagree with each other.
Well, somebody's wrong and somebody's right. Not everybody's right
because they say different things. Now, everybody can be wrong or
some people can be right and some people can be wrong. But
they can't all be right, right? So whenever we look at history
books, at the very most, we might fall on something that might
be true here or there. But the only thing that is all
truth is God's Word. And so I'm always going to lean
on God's Word even if it contradicts the plain teaching of history
from all the history theologians. And that's been the case over
the course of time. I've found that God's Word contradicts
a lot of what is being said in today's society. And we just
follow what the Word of God says. Now, God is the one who has created
all things. He is the one who has instituted
all institutions, and He is also the one who has created and set
up time. And time is accounted the way
God has determined time to be accounted for. And in Genesis
we find that God has created, and in creation He did not create
the sun at the very first, at the very beginning. Okay? But he did create the sun and
the moon and the stars to be for timepieces. Not, not, I don't
know what they're even called, but the people that deal with,
with dates and times and all that kind of stuff, whatever
they're called, that make calendars. Whether it's the Gregorian calendar,
whether it's the Roman calendar, whether it's the Jewish calendar,
whatever the case might be, We're going to go off of God's calendar.
Okay? Now, look with me in Genesis
chapter 1, starting in verse 3, it says, And God said, Let
there be light, and there was light. And God saw the light,
that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness.
And God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. Okay, so here we have God, He's
created light, and He's divided that the light from the darkness,
and he called the light day, and he called the night, or the
darkness night. And look at verse five there
at the end, it says, and the evening and the morning were
the first day. So here we see that God has established
time, he has established a day. And in establishing a day, he
has established a beginning with the evening. The evening and
then the morning, were the first day. Okay? So we've got to keep
that in mind as we go through the Word of God and how the people
of God, the Jews, and those that, of course, the Old Testament
specifically, but in the New Testament, these Jewish believers,
how they understood time, how they understood days, whenever
they worshipped and did these feasts and these festivals, all
these feasts that the Lord had given for them and celebrations
and remembrances and memorials, all of them went on God's time
frame. Evening and morning was the first
day. The beginning of the day started in the evening, not at
midnight, not at noontime, okay? That's something new that we
observe in our country, in our society, in our civilization. We have a day that begins at
midnight. Now it kind of coincides with
the Jewish rite. Our day starts at night time.
It's dark at night whenever the next day starts. I was up last
night at midnight. And that was the start of Sunday
for us. But it was dark outside. It was
daylight. So it still kind of follows the
pattern. But the Jews believed that from
sunset to sunset was one day. So from the time the sun set
until the sun set again the next day, that was considered one
whole day. And so there was an evening and
then there was a morning and then that was a day. So it begins
with dark and ends with dark, right? Let's look, does it still
say that in other places? And God said, let there be a
firmament in the midst of the waters and let it divide the
waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and
divided the waters which were under the firmament from the
waters which were above the firmament, and it was so. And God called
the firmament heaven, and the evening and the morning were
the second day. So here we have established two
days consecutively. And it starts with the evening,
ends with the next evening, right? Evening and the morning were
the first day. After the morning time, which was light, right? The light was the morning, Darkness
was the evening, nighttime. And so, he goes on, he says,
and God said, let the waters under the heaven be gathered
together under one place, let the dry land appear, and it was
so. God called the dry land earth, and gathering together all the
waters of the waters called he seas, and God saw that it was
good. And God said, let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding
seed, and let the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind,
whose seed is in itself, upon the earth, and it was so. And
the earth brought forth grass and herb-yielding seed after
its kind, and the tree-yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself,
after his kind. And God saw that it was good,
and here it is. And the evening and the morning was the third
day." And we just keep going on down from there, down to verse
19. We see it again in the evening
and the morning was the fourth day. You go to verse 23, you
see it again. The evening and the morning was
the fifth day in verse 31. We see and God saw everything
that he had made and behold it was good in the evening and the
morning were the sixth day and on the seventh day God ended
his work which he had made and rested on the seventh day from
all his work. Therefore on the seventh day
we now have what God instituted as a Sabbath, a day of rest,
right? Sabbath. Now, does the Bible
talk about this anymore? You're saying, well, preacher,
you're just kind of being too literal. That's not how they
really understood that. Well, let's go and look at Leviticus
chapter 23. Leviticus 23, which by the way,
this is where God establishes the feasts. In Leviticus 23, let's go down
to verse 32. Now this is after God established
the Sabbath and everything, and then some of these people, we're
gonna talk about a little bit of these here in just a minute, but I
want you to mainly see this. In verse 32 it says, it shall be
unto you a Sabbath of rest, and ye shall afflict your souls,
and in the ninth day of the month, and even from even unto even,
Shall you celebrate your Sabbath? So see, even back here, even
on down in the Leviticus, after the Exodus, after God has established
His law among Israel, hundreds of years or however many years,
I'll be honest with you, I've not ever studied all that, so
I don't know how many years are in between everybody, but it
was a long time from the creation down to Moses and the children
of Israel and establishing of the law among Israel. Okay? Long
time. And even at this point, they
are viewing everything from even to evening. Now it means evening
to evening. That word even means evening to evening. So they are
to celebrate their Sabbath from evening time to the next evening
time. That is the Sabbath day. Evening
and the morning, one day. Okay? Look if you would at Deuteronomy
chapter 16. Deuteronomy chapter 16. Look with me through verse 6. It says, but at the place which
the Lord thy God shall choose to place his name in, there thou
shalt sacrifice the Passover at even. at the going down of
the sun at the season that thou camest forth out of Egypt. So, here we see that the Passover
lamb is to be killed at evening time, okay? And that's the beginning
of the day, that evening. Now, let's go into Leviticus
again, Leviticus chapter 23 again. Now that we've established that
According to God, a day is from evening to evening, one day. Let's look at how God established
the Passover. Leviticus chapter 23, and look
with me if you would. I'll tell you what, I'll go ahead
and start at verse 1, but I'm going to read down to probably
verse 8, it looks like here, let me go a little bit further.
So then the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children
of Israel, and say unto them, Concerning the feast of the Lord,
which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these
are my feasts. They're his feasts. Okay, they're
not the church's feasts. Okay, they're his feasts. He
determines how they are to be conducted, how they are to be
honored, how they are to be celebrated, right? He determines that. Brethren, there's no difference
now in the New Testament, in the church, how God has set for
himself to be memorialized. In the Old Testament, God memorialized
himself, what he has done for his people. The Passover was
a memorial to celebrate what he had done for Israel, right?
And bring them out of Egypt. It was a memorial unto God of
his deliverance of his people. In the New Testament, God has
established within the church two ways, well, besides preaching,
but two ordinances to keep, to memorialize what God has done
for his people. And those two ordinances are
the water baptism and the Lord's supper. Those are the two ordinances
that God has given for the church to now memorialize because the
law is over with. We don't keep the law. We don't
have to keep the law. We don't celebrate Shabbat. We don't celebrate the Feast
of Unleavened Bread. We don't celebrate the Passover. We don't do all those things.
Now Christ has given to his church, who is the head of the church,
by the way, He doesn't take an opinion poll and ask you what
you think, or he doesn't ask the Pope what he should do, right? Christ is the head of the church
and he's given two memorials, baptism and the Lord's Supper,
to memorialize him. He never did anywhere in Scripture
say to celebrate his resurrection by a certain celebration, by
some sort of a holy day. or holiday, as we would call
them. He'd give two things. Every time someone is baptized
within the church, that is a memorial unto Christ. And then every time
that we, as the local church, together, the members together,
have the Lord's Supper, what is that? That is also a gospel
message of a memorial of what Christ has done for us. And that's
how he'd decide. And this is what God is saying.
He said, these are my feasts. And just like now, These are
Christ's ordinances. This is Christ's church and He
wants to be honored and glorified and celebrated the way He has
determined. And He never said anything about
Christmas. He never said anything about Easter being the days of
celebrating. He never said celebrate my birth.
Now are we glad for the day that Christ's birth happened? Absolutely
for the day that Christ came in to begin His work as our substitute. we are grateful that he came.
But there's nowhere in there that says that the church is
to celebrate that in honor of him. Now, if you at your house
want to do whatever you want to do, that's up to you. But
the church, as we meet and gather, that's not anything incumbent
upon us. And I know our church has had
people that have said stuff because we don't, you know, do Christmas
stuff in the church services. that, you know, hey, that's,
you guys are kind of weird, you know, how come, wouldn't you
want to celebrate? Well, Christ didn't tell us that we had to
celebrate His birth, and He didn't tell us that we had to celebrate
His resurrection, as far as setting the day aside for that, right?
That doesn't mean it's not important, it doesn't mean that we don't
teach it, it doesn't mean that we appreciate those days, and
especially the resurrection, my goodness. The resurrection,
the Bible talks a lot about the resurrection, we preach about
the resurrection, Matter of fact, the reason we meet on Sundays
is in honor of, or in remembrance of that resurrection that he
had, right? But look what it says there in
verse three. Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day
is the Sabbath of rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no
work therein. It is the Sabbath of the Lord
in all your dwellings. These are the feasts of the Lord,
even holy convocations, which He shall proclaim in their seasons."
So there's a specific time period, there's a specific season that
God has set these for a specific reason. You notice that? He says, "...in the fourteenth
day of the first month, at evening time, is the Lord's Passover."
So now God has established, when does the Passover take place?
It begins at the evening time of the 14th day of the first
month, also known to us as Nissan. I think the other calendar calls
it a bib or a bib or something like that. Like I said, I haven't
really studied all that kind of stuff out. But like the 14th
day of Nissan, I'm pretty sure is the day that we're talking
about. But the 14th day of the first month, right? And on the
fifteenth day of the same month, that's the next day, right? You
see that? Is the feast of unleavened bread
unto the Lord. Seven days ye must eat unleavened
bread. In the first day ye shall have
a holy convocation, ye shall do no servile work therein, but
ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord, Seven
days. And the seventh day is a holy
convocation and you shall do no servile work therein. Okay,
so God has established here that the Passover is on the 14th day
at evening time, beginning at the evening time. And that's when the Lord's Passover
begins. On the 15th day, the next day, so we go from evening
to evening, that's the 14th. At the beginning of the evening,
To the next evening is the 15th. That is the Feast of Unleavened
Bread, and that is considered a Sabbath day. It is considered
a holy day. It is considered a high, or well,
as we'll see in John, it'll be considered a high Sabbath. It's
a special Sabbath. It's not the weekly Sabbath.
It's not Saturday, okay? throughout all Jewish time, Saturday
is the last day of the week. It's the Sabbath day, okay? That's what they considered Sabbath.
So from evening time Friday till evening time on Saturday, that
was the Sabbath day, okay? Well, here we see that the Passover
begins on the evening of the 14th. the evening of the fifth,
or at the evening of the fourth, the next evening, beginning of
the 15th, is the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and he says, that day,
you shall do no work, that's a high, or that's a Sabbath day,
and that you need to keep that, okay? So now remember that, because
here in a minute, we're gonna see that there is this gap in
between one Sabbath and another Sabbath. There's two Sabbaths
that week. there's a high sabbath and there
is the regular sabbath and if you have a friday crucifixion
you can't squeeze those two sabbaths together and as we've seen in
that video the word of God would be incorrect if we have one passage
saying that the women bought and prepared the spices before
the sabbath and then saying that after the sabbath they brought
the spices or they prepare the spices. So we can't, that doesn't
work if we're saying that this Sabbath is the same Sabbath on
the same day. And we'll see that as we go further. So we see in the Word of God
that God teaches that there is an evening and a morning and
that establishes one day. From evening time to evening
time. We see that God has established that an evening is whenever these
things begin. So at the beginning of the day,
which in their time is evening. And he is determined that the
14th day of the first month is when the Lord's Passover begins,
and that the 15th day of the same month is whenever there
is a Sabbath day that follows. It's the beginning of the Feast
of Unleavened Bread. On the first day of that feast,
you can't do any work. Now after that day, even though
it's still the Feast of Unleavened Bread going for seven days, They
can do work long as it's not on a regular Sabbath. Okay? So
here we see that the day, the 15th, which would have been Thursday,
that Thursday would have been a Sabbath day after Jesus died. We know that Jesus, whenever
he was on the cross, they said, we've got to get him down off
the cross. We've got to get him buried because we can't have
dead people up on the cross on the Sabbath day. So we know that
the day after Jesus died was a Sabbath day. Well, after that
Sabbath day, the women couldn't, or that day that they did that,
the women had no time to get spices, prepare spices, to go
and anoint Jesus' body. They had to get him down because
it was at the ninth hour. That was around six o'clock.
It was almost dark time. It was almost time for the next
day to begin. And if that was the case, They
would have been defiled because they had defiled the Sabbath
day by having dead people touching and messing with dead people
on Sabbath day. So they had to have him in the
tomb and be done with him before the Sabbath day started, which
was the evening of the 14th, beginning of the 15th, right?
And the beginning of the 15th was to be a holy convocation.
It was to be a high Sabbath. It was to be a special Sabbath.
So they had to get that down. So the women couldn't have prepared
spices before they put them in the tomb. So, what happened? Well, the
Bible says that they did that, that they bought spices after
the Sabbath. Well, after Thursday, on Friday,
even though it was still the Feast of Unleavened Bread, it
was not a high Sabbath. It was not the beginning of Unleavened
Bread, but it was in the part of the middle of the Unleavened
Bread. So they could now go out and do work. They could go out
and buy. They can go out and walk as far
as they want to walk. They could go and do whatever
they wanted to do on Friday. And so there they went and prepared
those things, but they had to have it done before nighttime
because at the beginning of nighttime goes into Saturday, which was
their weekly Sabbath. So they went and they bought
spices. They came and prepared the spices, but they couldn't
go and north the body of Jesus because the next day was the
Sabbath. And so the Bible says it was after the Sabbath that
they took to go anoint the body of Jesus. So they couldn't have
been talking about, they couldn't have been talking about Thursday. So they had to be talking about
Friday. But if they went to anoint the
body of Jesus, that was on the day that he rose from the grave,
which was Sunday. Okay. Keep those things in mind. All right. So turn with me now
to Matthew chapter 12. I hope I'm not being too confusing.
There's a lot of stuff in here and I'll be honest with you.
I want to study some of this a lot more. So I have it all
up in here. I have to kind of jot down a
little bit of notes here and there for this, but I want to
thoroughly know and understand when these days come and go and
these feast days and stuff like that. So I'm more fluent in my
understanding of these things. But for now, I just have to write
these things down and follow along as I can myself. But in Matthew chapter 12, and
this goes back to what I said last week about the importance
of God's Word, and it being the truth, and that every word in
here is inspired of God, and it's the Word of God, and Christ
is the Word of God. If anything that has been said
in this book right here that we have preserved for us, anything
that's said in here came from Christ because Christ is the
Word of God. Right? Christ is the Word of
God. And Christ sent His Spirit to
inspire these writers to write every word according to as He
dictated it. It's His words. It's not Paul's
words. It's not Peter's words. It's
not Moses' words. These are the words of God, Christ
being the manifestation of who God is. He is God manifested
in the flesh. So anytime you hear God, anytime
you see God, who are you seeing and hearing? You're seeing Christ.
He is the one who is the mediator between God and man. So if anything
is mediated to God, On account of man, it's through the man,
Jesus Christ. And anything that's mediated to the people on behalf
of God, it's the man, Jesus Christ. Okay? And so we have a whole
study on that, and we can do it another time as well to answer
the questions about Old Testament stuff, but we don't have time
for that today. All right, Matthew chapter 12. Look with me, if
you would, starting in verse 38. The reason I said all that
is because of this. We take God's word over anything
else, right? This is Jesus. Jesus is the one
who created all things. The Bible says that He, that
in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and
the Word was God. All things were created by Him.
There wasn't anything made that was not made. He has made all
things and all things were created by Him and for Him. Okay? So whenever, we just read in
Genesis that God created the heavens and the earth When we
see that God created light and darkness and separated them and
called them morning and night and called them the evening and
the morning being the first day, that was Christ. That was Christ. So I think Christ, not only being
God who knows all things, not only being the Word of God who
has spoken all things, not only being God who has created all
things, but here we have Jesus who is telling us what time is
all about. And he says this, verse 38. It says, that the saying
of Isaiah, the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake,
Lord, who has delivered our report and to whom hath the arm of the
Lord been revealed? Therefore, they could not believe
because It says, Then certain of the
scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we
would see a sign from thee. But he answered and said unto
them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign. I'm just going to make a side
note to that. I'm going to chase a little rabbit
here. Do you see what Jesus said? An evil and adulterous generation
seeketh after signs. These churches that are all about
signs, whether it be prophecy signs or whether it be miraculous
signs, You see these churches that all they do is they're looking
in the newspaper, they're looking at the news, and they're looking
at signs about everything. You know, Tim LaHaye, John Hagee,
all these guys that are constantly talking about all the end time
junk and everything. They're always looking for a
sign. They're always looking for a sign. Blood moons and all
that kind of junk. Wars and rumors of wars and earthquakes. Listen, there's been wars and
rumors of wars ever since Christ died and resurrected. There has
been famine. There has been pestilence. There
has been drought. There has been diseases of all
kinds. There has been all kinds of stuff.
There has been fallings away of the church, people of the
church. There has been ebbs and flows
of that. Listen, brethren, it continues
in a cyclic pattern and will until the Lord comes again. But
also think of the Pentecostals. And those of the charismatic
movement that they're all the time looking for a sign, you
know, whether it's, you know, somebody speaking in tongues,
whether it's somebody doing some miracle. Look at the Catholics
who are all the time looking for miracles and everything with
their, with their, what do they call it whenever they supposedly
see, you know, Jesus's face in a piece of toast and all like
this, you know, they have their shrines set up all over the place
with all their statues and icons, and they're praying to idols,
and they're, you know, what is it, whenever they supposedly
somebody begins to bleed, you know, these statues begin to
bleed and all this kind of stuff. Anyway, to us, we say, man, that's
crazy, that's weird, but listen, that's really reality to some
people, and they believe that that's, they're looking after
a sign. But Jesus said an evil and adulterous
generation seeketh after a sign. Faith doesn't seek after signs.
The Bible says that faith is the evidence of things not seen,
right? Faith is the substance of things
hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. It's not looking
after signs. It says, and there shall no sign
be given to it but the sign of the prophet Jonas. Okay, so Jesus
is about to give them something here, right? For as Jonas, and
we're talking about Jonah here, by the way, For as Jonah was
three days and three nights in the well's belly, so shall the
Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of
the earth. So right here, Jesus himself
has declared how long he would be in the heart of the earth.
Now, for those who say, well, it was, you know, that the Jews
declare one day, you know, a part of a day is a day. That would
probably be okay if Jesus had not said this, three days and
three nights. He added the fact that there
was three days and three nights. So that is three full days from
even to even, from even to even, from even to even. Three days,
three nights. Evening and morning, first day.
Evening and morning, second day. Evening and morning, third day. is what Jesus is saying. Three
days. Now, why do we claim that this
is important? Because Jesus said three days
and three nights. Because in the Old Testament,
the Old Testament said that that was an evening and a morning.
It began at evening and it ended at evening. Because God's Word
has determined the time frames, God's Word has determined the
days that the Passover would take place, God has determined
the times in which Christ would die. He had a specific time that
he would be crucified. Look with me, if you would, in
Matthew chapter 26. Matthew chapter 26, and look down at,
if you would with me, down to verse 60. Matthew chapter 26. Actually, let's start, Verse 57, it said, And they that
had laid hold on Jesus led him away to Caiaphas the high priest,
where the scribes and the elders were assembled. But Peter followed
him afar off under the high priest's house and went in and sat with
the servants to see the end. Now the chief priests and elders
and all the council sought false witness against Jesus to put
him to death, but found none. Yea, though many false witnesses
came, yet found they none. At the last came two false witnesses,
and said, This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of
God, and to build it in three days." So here again is another
account where it would be three days. Jesus, and of course this
goes back to the account in John chapter two, I believe
it is, where Jesus has said, you know, destroy this temple
and I will build it back up again in three days, right? So here
we see another allusion or another witness to the fact that Jesus
himself said that whenever this body is destroyed, dies, It's
going to be raised back up again in three days. It's going to
be built back again in three days. Now look at Matthew 27,
over to verse 62. Matthew 27, verse 62. This is after Jesus has died. The religious leaders were afraid
that the disciples were going to lie about Jesus and steal
his body. You know that there are people
today that still hold that Jesus' body was stolen and it really
didn't rise from the dead, that they say that he really did die
and stayed dead and that they just stole his body. There's
other people that say that Jesus was buried in a shallow grave
and that dogs and animals came and got the body and took it
away, you know. They're trying to discount the
fact that Jesus was resurrected. But anyway, look with me if you
want down to verse 62. It says, now the next day that
followed the day of preparation, the next day that followed the
day of preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees came together
on a pilot. So Jesus already died. And this is the day after the
day of preparation. Which by the way, the day of
preparation was on the 14th of Nisan. Okay, the day that Jesus
died. This was the next day. The chief
priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate, saying, Sir, we
remember that the deceiver said while he was yet alive, so they're
recounting what Jesus said. After three days, I will rise
again. So here again, here's another
witness that Jesus said that there would be three days, and
after those three days, he would rise again. So here we have three
witnesses that Jesus has taught that there would be three days and three nights before
he rose from the grave. Now, in John chapter 19, we find that
there was a high Sabbath. I was just mentioning that a
minute ago. Look if you would. John chapter 19. there was a
high Sabbath. So Jesus said three days and
three nights. So that means that there has
to be, again, evening, morning, evening, morning, evening, morning,
three days, right? You can't get that from Friday
to Sunday morning or Saturday evening. You can't get that. You can't get that from Thursday.
The only way you can get that is from Wednesday until Sunday
morning or Saturday evening. Sunday morning, right? That's
the only way that you can get that, as we've seen on that video,
and it details it very clearly, that that is an evening and a
morning. First day, 14th day of Nisan. Evening and morning,
15th day of Nisan. What was that? That was the High
Sabbath. Jesus died on a Wednesday, High Sabbath on a Thursday. Friday
was the day that they went and gathered the spices. Saturday,
was a regular weekly Sabbath, and at the end of that Sabbath,
on the Sabbath, Jesus rose from the dead. At the ending of the
Sabbath, going into the next day, the first day of the week,
Jesus rose, which would have been at night time, right? It
would have been at night, oh, you all right, bud? It would
have been dark time, not daybreak. It was the beginning of the first
day, but the beginning of the first day isn't daybreak, it's
dawn, or it's at dusk, dark time, okay? So Jesus resurrected at
dusk. As the Sabbath was fading out,
he was being raised from the dead, beginning of the first
day of the week. Look at verse 19, or John 19
and verse 31. Notice if you would this High
Day. A lot of people don't catch this. for that Sabbath was as a high
day. Besought Pilate that the legs
might be broken, that they might be taken away. So they wanted
to get Jesus down off the cross because it was going into, about
to go into the Sabbath and they couldn't have him up on the cross
according to the law. Couldn't have him up on the cross.
And so they had to, went to have his legs broken. But notice it
was, it was the preparation day. Well, the preparation day, was
that 14th day of Nisan. Same day. So Jesus died on that
day. The first day of unleavened bread
was on the 15th, which followed the Passover, or that day of
preparation. Jesus, whenever they instituted
the Lord's Supper, if you remember, it was dark time, right? It was
night because they went out to the garden of Gethsemane at night
and they came and the soldiers came by night to take him away. Judas betrayed him by night.
All that happened at nighttime. Why did it happen at nighttime?
Well, it's because it started at the dark time, dusk, of the
13th, which was the beginning of the 14th day of Nisan, which
was, if you remember, we read back in Leviticus, that the day
of the Passover began at even on the 14th, which the even of
the 14th began at the end of the day of our day, or excuse
me, at the end of their day, which was dusk time on the 13th. So here we have the day of preparation,
the day of Passover. Jesus died on the same day that
he They took the Lord's Supper. Now the Jews could do, the Jews
could celebrate and do the Passover, as we've seen in Leviticus, from
even to even. They could do it from even to
even. They had to kill the lamb at
the end of the day, by the end of the day, but they could celebrate
the Passover from all day long. Jesus started at the beginning
of that day, but he as that sacrificial lamb died at the same hour that
the Paschal Lamb or the Passover Lamb was to be killed. So he
died at that exact same time. Another thing to note is they
also had days of examination of those lambs. I believe it
was four days that they were to examine and to make sure that
these lambs were without spot and without blemish before they
killed these lambs and they had these lambs in. And so they had
a day of preparation, or excuse me, they had a day of examination
and they examined this. Well, if you remember, Jesus
prior to this day had been coming in and out of Jerusalem and going
back to Bethany. And each day he was going into
the town and he was doing miracles. He was preaching. He went into
the tabernacle. That's one of the days that he
went into the tabernacle. And he turned over the tables and
he said, you know, my house will be called the house of prayer.
And he ran all the people out of the tabernacle who were in
there buying and selling and blaspheming against God in the
tabernacle. And during that period of time
is whenever he proved that he was the Messiah. He proved that he was the Lamb
of God. He would take away the sins of the world by the miracles
and the signs that he was doing during that time. But also remember
that he was also the one who was brought before the men or
the religious leaders and in that time he was examined and
as we just read he was examined and they couldn't find nothing
against him so they brought in two false witnesses. So the Paschal
Lamb was thoroughly examined before his death. Pilate examined
him. So the Jews and the Gentiles
both examined this lamb and couldn't find anything wrong with him.
He was perfect. Couldn't find anywhere where
he had broke any law, had done anything wrong. Now the Jews
thought he broke the law of blasphemy because he claimed to be God,
but he didn't break no law. They thought he broke the law,
but he didn't break no law because he really is God. So that wasn't
blasphemy for him to do that. So he was found without blame,
he was found without spot, he was found without any kind of
sin, and nobody could find anything that he had even done civilly
amongst their own laws that he had broken, that they could lay
blame to him for doing anything, and that was before he was crucified. But on the day he was crucified,
same day, and so He was, he followed every Old Testament law. He was
examined just like the lamb was. He was put to death at the same
time as the sacrificial lamb was to be sacrificed. The Bible
said that he was laid in the tomb and the next day was the
feast of unleavened bread. And so brother, we see that there
is no way that his death could have occurred with all the events
that took place and to line up with all the the feast and the
festivals that God had ordained for them to keep, and that to
be on Friday. Now, as I mentioned to you on
your papers that I give you, and you can go and look all these
up, because I didn't think I'd have time to go through all of
these, but you can go through a lot of these that's here, and
then also at the bottom of your papers on these other two things,
and you can see when the women did what? And the verses. And pay close
attention to the wording of it. That they went there on the evening
of, on the morning of, the day dawned towards that. Now, I'm
going to, I ran out of time today, but I want to also, I don't want
to just put forth the things, why we think what we think. I
also want to answer the questions to people that have a question,
because there does seem to be some contradictions in God's
Word when it revolves around this. One of them being the women
and getting their spices. So that's why I really didn't
get into that much today, but we're going to look at that Lord
willing next week, because I also want to answer any questions
that might arise on contradictions in God's Word. Because there
are some that says that, like on the road to Emmaus, the men
who were walking on the road to Emmaus and Jesus came after
he resurrected that was in one passage it looks like it was
the day after he resurrected another scripture says that those
men said that it's been three days since he resurrected and
so is that a contradiction? We want to look at that. So I
want to answer any of those questions if there's any questions you
guys might have Hopefully I can answer those as well. But does
anybody have any questions this morning about this? I know this
kind of was a little bit jumbled, but my main point was to show
you that the time and the timing is what's very important. And
Jesus himself said three days and three nights. And the only
way that that can fit what Jesus said, where Jesus is truth, The feasts are kept and the days
on the same days. And the fulfillment of all those
things, the exact time when Jesus died, and the fulfillment of
all those things as the fulfillment of those tithes and foreshadows.
And the Sabbaths, the extra Sabbath and everything. How can all that
fit if there's a Thursday or a Friday crucifixion? Well, it
can't. So that's why we believe what
we believe And again, I'm open for correction on that. I know
I've seen that there's a lot of things out on the internet
that support a Thursday and a Friday. I don't see how Friday can be
supported at all, but there are some reform men that I've been
looking at this week that are very adamant that Wednesday is
the craziest day to pick. And then there's more validity
in a Thursday, but they say that Friday has to be the day. But
to me, they've got the calendar off. The calendar's off on that.
But anyway, again, I'm not going to fight with anybody over any
of this stuff, but I do think it's something that somebody
ought to look into, at least, because the Lord did give us
the exact days. to keep these things in the past,
and Jesus was the fulfillment of it. And so for Christ to have
fulfilled all things, he would have had to fulfill them the
way that God had required them to be fulfilled. And so that's
why we put importance on this, is because it coincides just
like with the Lord's Supper, just like with the baptism. Why
do we stress water baptism by full immersion of believers?
Because there is a picture involved in that. that Jesus had said,
make disciples. Disciples are ones who believe
and follow Christ, right? So those are the only ones you
baptize. You don't baptize babies who don't know anything. You
can't exercise, they can't exhibit their faith, you know? Why do we dump all the way underneath
the water? Well, because number one, that was the example that
was already given to us. The word itself means to be fully
immersed, but it also signifies our death, burial, and resurrection,
our union with Christ in that death, burial, and resurrection.
That His death, burial, and resurrection meant our death, burial, and
resurrection. We died with Him. We rose with Him. And so that
symbol is there and Christ made it that way because of the content
behind it, the spiritual teaching behind it. Same thing with the
Lord's Supper. Why do we use unleavened bread?
Why do we use wine and not grape juice? Well, that's because the
Bible teaches those things and they're symbolic. The unleavened
bread pictured Christ's perfect body, or his perfection, his
sinless body that was broken for us. It was his flesh that
was broken for us. And that his blood was spotless
and sinless It wasn't defiled. It wasn't of the earth, earthy.
But it was pure to be shed for our cleansing. And that blood
was represented in wine, which there is no impurities in wine. Wine doesn't have any leaven
in it. There is no leaven in wine. And so that's why Christ
used those symbols. And if you take and change the
symbol, then you change the spiritual meaning behind it. and Christ
instituted that way for a reason. Same thing with what we're seeing
here. God gave these things in the Old Testament for a sign
and a purpose, and those things was important to what Christ
would do, and for Christ to fulfill those, he had to fulfill them
as God had ordained them to be done. Otherwise, he'd have been
disobedient to God, just like if we do the Lord's Supper with
Twinkies and chocolate milk, you know, that's, you know, that's
not what Christ instituted. And therefore, just like Paul,
whenever Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he said, you guys are saying
you're doing the Lord's Supper, but that is not the Lord's Supper
that you're doing. That is not the Lord's Supper.
You're thinking that's the Lord's Supper. And there's a lot of
churches today, we could probably say that, you think you're doing
the Lord's Supper, but that's not the Lord's Supper, because
that's not the way he instituted it, and that's not the way he
designed it to be carried out. Same thing today, Brethren. There's
no righteousness that we gain from any of that, but it is just
the admonition to follow the Lord and what He has given for
us to do in remembrance of Him. And so we don't base fellowship
on people that celebrate, you know, holidays. You know, we
don't, we don't, we don't cast out people who may go to have
their church. They may decide they want to
do their church on Friday or Saturday or something like that.
You know, we don't get uptight about those things. Is there
a precedence, I think, set forth to meet on Sunday? I think there
is. Is there a command that we have
to do that? No, I don't believe there is.
But anyway, that being said, does anybody got any questions
or comments? all right well it's good to see
everybody good to have kevin and i was on their back we missed you guys when you were
gone we missed your mom too i hear that she's having to work today
right my mom is not coming tonight He's asleep over there on that
chair. Let's go to the Lord. We'll have a prayer and we'll
be dismissed today. Our gracious Heavenly Father,
we thank you today for your mercy and your grace. We thank you
for the word of God that we have before us as our only rule of
faith. And Father Lord, I know that
this morning, the things that we're talking about, there's
a lot of things involved in it. There's a lot of details. There's
a lot of scriptures. There's a lot of tradition that
can be hung on these things that can skew our understanding. Lord,
we just pray for the truth. We want to know the truth. We
want to preach the truth. We don't want to hold to a tradition
because it's a tradition that means so much to us if that tradition
isn't found in God's word. We want to seek the old paths
and we want to follow them. we want to do and worship as
God has commanded us to worship. We don't want to add anything
to the worship of God that God has not sanctioned for us to
do. We don't want to do anything,
Father, that would be dishonoring to you and not bringing glory
to Christ, Lord. We know that righteousness doesn't
come in all these things, that we don't become holy by what
we do in these, But Father, we just desire to do the things
that bring glory to Christ and is honoring to Him. And Lord,
we just ask that you might help us in all of that. You would
help me in my preaching and teaching, Father, to preach truth and to
be discerning of error. And Lord, that you would correct
me in the areas that I might be following after my own thoughts
and my own understanding or following after other men's traditions
that have been placed upon my understanding over the years,
Lord. I just ask that you would break us free from those things.
Lord, I just pray that you just might help us now as we leave
this place, that we might be witnesses for you to those that
we are around. We pray, Lord, that you would
just keep us safe this week as we travel and work and the places
that we're at, Lord. We just ask that you will gather
together again the next Lord's Day as you see fit, Father. And we just thank you so much
for Christ today. We thank you for his death. That
is the important thing of what we were talking about today,
is the fact that he really did die, that he really did bear
our sins in his body, that he really did take our place, and
that by his death, by his blood, We have been redeemed and we've
been justified before God, but that father also that he really
did raise from the dead. It's not just a myth. It's not
just a fairy tale. It's not just a story that Christ
really did rise from the dead on the third day. And that by
that resurrection, we've been justified by that resurrection.
We've been given new life by that resurrection father. He
has, uh, uh, satisfied all that God has required on our behalf.
And we are so grateful for that. And I bet that Lord, that Savior,
that Christ, our King, not only did He rise from the dead, but
He lives forevermore, that He's ascended even now to the right
hand of God, ruling and reigning over all things. And Lord, we
pray that His return will be soon. We ask, Lord, that You
would just come quickly, that You would come Lord, and in this
world, in this time of sin and these bodies that you would resurrect
us to new life or to new body. This world, Lord, may be destroyed
and that may be resurrected in a new heaven and a new earth.
Father, Lord, we pray for your soon return. Lord, we are so
overwhelmed by the evil of this day. We are overwhelmed by the
sin. But Lord, we know by grace we
can overcome those things. We know by grace that you have
given us that we can live victorious in this life. Not by living holy
as in becoming more holy, but we can live knowing that all
things are predestinated of you and that all things are being
worked and done for the purpose of our good and your pleasure
and your will. And Father, that all things are
for your glory. And so Lord, we just ask that
you might continue to remind us of those things. And thank
you again for these brethren that are here today. And may
you bless them this week.