Well, good morning everyone.
If you would open your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter 28. Matthew chapter 28. Before we begin, let's bow before
our Lord in prayer. Our Father, how we thank you
for this day. The day that you've given to
us and appointed as a day of worship, where we can meet together
with our brothers and our sisters and to one more time hear the
glorious gospel of Christ our Savior. Father, I pray you'd
bless us. We thank you for giving us this
opportunity and this place. We thank you for bringing us
here this morning and allowing us to be here. And Father, I
pray that you'd also bless us with your presence, the presence
of your spirit, and give us a true heart of worship. Let us hear
of Christ our Savior in awe and in wonder. Wonder that someone
as wonderful as he is would do something so glorious for people
as wretched and vile as we are. Father, give us faith to believe
him and to trust him. Father, I pray that you would
bless me as I preach, that you would give me of your spirit
to enable me to rightly divide the word of truth and to preach
the gospel with a heart of love, love for thee and love for your
people. And Father, give your people a believing heart, a hearing
ear, enable us to hear and learn more of Christ our Savior. What
we pray for ourselves, we pray especially for our children's
classes right now. Father, we thank you for our
teachers. Pray that you'd bless them. How we thank you for our
children. Father, bless them in this time.
Use this time to plant the seeds of faith in their heart. And
Father, we pray your mercy upon them, spiritually and physically. Oh, that you'd be merciful to
them. Protect them, protect their minds and their hearts and their
bodies from this wicked generation in which they grow up. And also,
Father, what we pray for ourselves, we pray for your people everywhere
who are meeting together today to worship. Bless your word.
where it's preached. I follow all these things we
ask and we give thanks in that name which is above every name,
the name of Christ our Savior. Amen. I've titled our lesson
this morning A Message from the Empty Tomb. We're going to look
this morning at the resurrection of Christ. If you think about
this, the resurrection of Christ is the most significant event
in human history. Maybe that's not what you would
have thought right off, but that's true. The resurrection of Christ
from the tomb is the most significant event in human history for this
reason. All of the purpose of God concerning the redemption
of his people would fail if Christ is not raised from the dead.
God's election of a people would be meaningless. Christ's death
would be meaningless. Unless Christ both died and rose
again from the grave. The birth of Christ, isn't that
a miracle? What a miracle that God was born
in human flesh. The righteousness of Christ is
perfect obedience to the law. That's a miracle. Nobody else
has ever produced such an obedience. And the death of Christ, that
he could die and who he would die for. Great miracle. But all of that is meaningless.
unless Christ is raised from the tomb. Our doctrine, our preaching,
our faith in Christ, our trust in Christ, it's all empty and
it's all vain unless Christ arose from the dead. Our hope of glory
is an empty hope unless Christ arose from the dead. Because
if Christ did not rise from the dead, his death did not satisfy
God's justice. Let me show you that in 1 Corinthians
chapter 15. 1 Corinthians chapter 15, beginning in verse 12. Now if Christ be preached that
he rose from the dead, how say some among you there is no resurrection
of the dead? But if there be no resurrection
of the dead, then is Christ not risen. And if Christ be not risen,
then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yeah,
and we're found false witnesses of God, because we've testified
of God that he raised up Christ, whom he raised not up, if so
be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then
is not Christ raised. And if Christ be not raised,
your faith is vain, and you're yet in your sins. Then they also
which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. So the resurrection
of Christ is vital to our salvation. There's no gospel for us to preach.
There's no good news for us to preach unless Christ arose from
the dead. And if you look over at John
chapter 11, the resurrection of Christ is so vital that the
resurrected Christ, him personally, is our hope of life. John 11 verse 23. This is when our Lord
is speaking with Martha at the tomb of her brother Lazarus. And Jesus saith unto her, thy
brother shall rise again. Martha saith unto him, I know
that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.
Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and I am the life. He that believeth in me, though
he were dead, yet shall he live. Whosoever liveth and believeth
in me shall never die. Believest thou this? And she
said, yea, Lord, I believe. that thou art the Christ, the
son of God, which should come into the world. So, you know,
the resurrected Christ, he is, that is all of our hope of eternal
life. And, you know, you read in the,
mostly, I guess, in the book of Acts, but you read other places
where it's recorded what the apostles preached. They preached
the resurrection of Christ in almost every message that is
recorded in scripture. They stressed the resurrection
of Christ so strongly because that's the basis of the good
news of the gospel, and they would die rather than deny the
resurrection. And that made me think, I hope
that we stress the resurrection of Christ in our preaching too,
because we have no good news for sinners unless Christ arose
from the dead. So let's look here beginning
in verse one of Matthew 28. 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 sepulcher. Now, I don't know
a lot about these two Marys, but I know this, they were faithful
ladies. They were faithful. They were
the last two to leave the tomb of our Savior. They watched Joseph
of Arimathea and Nicodemus put him in the tomb and rolled the
stone and they left and those two ladies watched and then they
left. They were the last two to leave the tomb and they're
a first to arrive at the tomb. As soon as the Sabbath ended
and they were allowed to walk and go, you know, on the Sabbath
you couldn't take so many steps and all those things. As soon
as the Sabbath ended and the law allowed them to walk that
far, they walked to the tomb. They were the first ones to be
there at the tomb. And they were the first ones
to hear from the Lord too. Look at verse five. The angel
answered and said unto the women, fear not ye, For I know that
ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He's not here, for he's risen. As he said, come see the place
where the Lord lay and go quickly and tell his disciples that he's
risen from the dead. And behold, he goes before you
into Galilee. There shall you see him. Lo,
I've told you. And they departed quickly from
the sepulcher with fear and great joy and did run to bring his
disciples word. And as they went to tell his
disciples, behold, Jesus met them saying all hail. And they
came and held him by the feet and worshiped him. Then said
Jesus unto them, be not afraid. Go tell my brethren that they
go into Galilee and there shall they see me. Now both the angel
and the Lord told these faithful ladies, go tell my disciples
that I'm risen from the dead. These ladies were sent with a
message to someone in particular, a message from the empty tomb
to tell his disciples the Lord's risen. I have four points that
I want us to see, four points on a message of the empty tomb.
What does it mean to us that the Lord arose from the tomb?
I'm telling you it means all good news. That's what it means.
First of all, the empty tomb declares a glorious Savior. and a glorious salvation. Look
up at verse two. 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.
And for fear of him, the keepers did shake and became as dead
men. Now the glory of this angel who came as great earthquake
and the Angel came and rolled the stone back. He's sitting
there on that stone. The glory of this angel was so
bright. You couldn't look at him. It's
like looking at lightning. He shines so brightly. Now that
glory made the unbeliever afraid, made him play possum like they
were dead, but it didn't make the believers afraid. That filled
them with reverence. It filled them with awe, but
they weren't, they didn't need to be afraid. The angel told
him verse five, And the angel answered and said to the women,
fear not ye. There's no reason for you to
be afraid. Don't be afraid. Now isn't all that a good picture
of gospel preaching? You know, our gospel is not just
dry facts and figures about who the Lord Jesus Christ is and
how he accomplished a legal transaction with the father and got all these
ducks in a row between him and the father. It's not facts and figures. It's not accounting. The gospel
declares a glorious salvation. It declares that to the heart.
To the heart. The gospel declares a glorious
savior. And when the gospel is preached
right, it ought to be awe-inspiring. Just awe-inspiring. I mean, I
know we're not because we're in the flesh, but we really should
be so awestruck every single time we hear the gospel. that
we just sit in silent wonder at hearing who the Lord Jesus
Christ is, His glory, His person, and what He did for somebody
like me. To think of the glory of the
Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and what He did for no-count
sinners. That's the most glorious story
that's ever been told. The fact that the Son of God
would suffer and die so that He could take the likes of you
and me and make us the righteousness of God in Him, that He would
do that for us, it's more glorious than human
language can express. I mean, I feel a little silly
trying to talk about it because we don't have words to express
the glory of this. You think how glorious it is
that God the Father would even conceive of such a salvation
for us, that he would even conceive it. You think how glorious it
is that God himself would do all of the work to purchase this
salvation, to establish this salvation and give it to sinners
freely. Not good people, but sinners. You think how glorious it is
that the father would slaughter his own son in the worst way
imaginable so that he could give salvation to sinners freely,
make them righteous by his death for them so that justice would
be satisfied for them and there's no way that they could perish
because God's justice is satisfied. That's so glorious. I mean, it
just is glorious that the Holy Spirit enables people to hear
the gospel and to believe. The flesh thinks this is foolishness.
But the fact that you can hear another sinful man preach Christ
and believe Christ in spite of the sinful man, in spite of his
weaknesses and his tongue-tiedness, and still believe on Christ,
that's so glorious. Isn't it glorious that you love
someone you've never seen with fleshly eyes? I've been to Madisonville, Kentucky
a few times when Brother Maurice Montgomery was pastor. And I
would use his study to go over my notes and prepare for the
message. And he had an empty frame hang
over, hit the doorway in his study. And there was a sign beside
it. Whom having not seen, ye love. Isn't that amazing that you love
somebody you've never seen with fleshly eyes? I know you've seen
with the eyes of faith. That's why you love him. That's
why you believe him. Now that's glorious. And one of my big,
big concerns for this congregation is that we never become lukewarm
about the gospel simply because we've heard it so many times.
I don't know that there's a group of people that's been more blessed
of God to be able to hear the gospel for this many years over
and over and over again. I mean good preaching. And I
hope we just never think, well, that's just another one of the
many messages that I've heard. And it's not glorious. I've heard
that before, so it's not glorious to us. This ought to be a glorious,
glorious message. Well, it is. It ought to be preached
that way, shouldn't it? It ought to be heard that way.
All right, number two, the message of the empty tomb is that the
law has been put away. I've never thought about this
before, Look at this in verse one, 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 second in the end
of the Sabbath. Now up to the death of Christ,
the law of Moses was in full effect. Our savior obeyed the
law perfectly. He went through every ceremony. He obeyed every law. All this
was in full effect, but now Christ has died and he's risen. The law is finished. His death,
his resurrection put an end to the law. The Lord showed us that
when he gave up the ghost on the cross. What happened in the
temple? The veil in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.
Used to be you couldn't come in that. Only the high priest
could come in there on the appointed day, one day a year, on the day
of atonement, and he had to come with blood. Now you can walk
in there any time you want. It's torn from top to bottom.
A tall sinner, a short sinner, a skinny sinner, a fat sinner,
anybody. Anybody with the need can come
straight to the throne. Well, here we see the end of
the Sabbath. This is the last Sabbath, and
I think it's interesting how it's written, in the end of the
Sabbath. It doesn't say in the end of
that Sabbath day. This is the end of the Sabbath. The Sabbath is over. Keeping
a day is over. There's going to be no more days
kept anymore. No more Sabbath days. No more
Passover day. No more days of atonement. No
more days of the feast of the tabernacle. No more days of all
these days that they had. The days are over. Now we have
the beginning of the Sabbath of faith. No more days. Now we have the beginning of
rest. Rest in Christ. Not a physical
rest that the law requires. but faith in Christ, rest in
Christ that the heart craves. You know, the old law forbid
these ladies to come to the tomb on Saturday, but now the Sabbath
is ended. Not just this one day. All Sabbaths
are ended and they are free to come to God anytime they want.
Used to be that priest went into the Holy of Holies with blood
full of fear and If he got one of these steps wrong, he didn't
do something right, God's going to kill him. What if he started
crawling under that veil and forgot to bring the blood with
him? He and me had it, and I could see me doing that, don't you?
I could see me starting to have my little base in the blood there,
and I'd forget it. Got to wipe him out. Fear. Now, the Lord
said, fear not. Fear not. Come any time. Come
to the throne of grace any time you want, any time that you have
need. You can offer the sacrifices of praise anytime you want. Before
you had to go take the animal and whatever was going to be
sacrificed and give it to the priest and the priest would sacrifice
it for you. Now you offer the sacrifice of praise anytime you
want because Christ the lamb has been slain. He's raised from
the dead. You come bring the sacrifice
of praise anytime you want. There's no more need for a priest
after the order of Aaron. We have a high priest. And he's
seated on the right hand of the throne, the majesty on high.
Now, the law's done. You can walk anywhere you want
on Saturday. Saturday's the Sabbath day. You
can walk anywhere you want. The Sabbath law even said how
many sticks you can pick up. You can pick up as many sticks
as you want. It's fall, and the leaves are falling, and some
branches. Saturday, clean your yard all you want. The law's
finished. The law's finished. Nothing is
forbidden for the believer under the law. Just come rest in Christ. The law requires no work, no
deeds, nothing for you to do. Rest. Rest in Christ. That Sabbath day had only been
a picture of Christ. And I can just imagine, I don't
know about adults, I always used to think about this as a child.
When I was a little guy, And we lived in Danville. I had a
basketball goal set up on, dad put it up over top of the carport.
And as soon as we got home on Sunday and we ate and washed
up the dishes, always had to wash, Jonathan didn't, me and
Becky had to wash the dishes always. Sorry, but it's true. You know what I'd do? I'd go
play basketball. I just shoot that thing. I shoot
baskets till mom, dad say it's time to get dressed, go to church
again for Sunday night. And really, I did really think
this. I thought, I'm so thankful that
law is done. How horrible was that for some
little boy, some little girl, they just want to go play. They
got so full of energy, they just want to run, and you couldn't
do it. The Sabbath law made you rest, and nobody wanted to do
it. Now, come rest in Christ. I know the flesh still doesn't
want to do it. The flesh still wants to earn our way to God. We want
to not work in any other way, don't we? We wish we could win
the lottery and not go to work. But boy, we want to work our
way to heaven. Come rest in Christ. We don't
have the picture anymore. We have the real thing. Let your
heart rest from fear of judgment. Rest from that fear in Christ.
Let your heart have spiritual rest. You don't have to keep
the law for God to be happy with you. Just rest in Christ and
you'll be accepted in the beloved. That's what the believer that
we trust Christ. So we rest in him. And that's
what the empty tomb tells us. Quit trying to earn your way
to God and rest. Just rest in Christ who's finished
the work for us. All right, here's the third thing. Boy, this is glorious. Remember
I told you the gospel's glorious. The message of the empty tomb
is this. The sin of God's elect is gone.
Here's how we know the sin of God's elect is gone. Christ rose
from the grave. That's how we know that. At the
cross, the father made his son sin. All of the sin of all of
his people, that enormous black vile mass was all on the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's the reason Christ died
on the cross. Sin demands death. The only way Christ could die
if he, if it is, if he had been made guilty of that sin and his
death, his suffering and his death, put that sin away. When he said it's finished, brother,
it's finished. Sin is finished. The law is finished. It's finished. The blood of his
sacrifice washed his sinful people white as snow. Without sin. And that sounds too fantastic
to believe, but the resurrection of Christ is the proof. His death
put away the sin of his people. Sin is gone. So the grave can't
hold it. Look at Romans chapter four.
I know probably everybody here can quote this. But let's look
at it, I want you to know this is not just Frank saying this,
this is what the word of God says. Romans 4 verse 25. Who was delivered for our offenses
and raised again for our justification. Christ was made sin for us. All of our offenses were put
on him. His death put it away. The proof
of that is he's raised again. As evidence, he justified his
people from their sin. Now that message needs to be
preached as a glorious, glorious message of comfort and assurance. It's not to be preached arguing
about justification and righteousness and being made sin and being
made righteous. The gospel is not to be preached
arguing that. The gospel is to be preached
declaring it. If you believe Christ, if Christ
died for you, your sin is gone. Now quit your fear. Quit fear. You don't have to fear death.
I mean, I know there's an uncertainty about
death, about the death of these bodies, because we've never done
it. We've never experienced that. But there's no reason for the
believer to fear it. There's no reason for the believer to
fear facing God in judgment. Christ has already been judged
for you. God is satisfied with you. If Christ died and rose
again for you. Now, I know we still sin, don't
we? After the Lord saves us, after we're converted, we still
sin. We never quit sinning. And for
the believer, that's very grievous. Oh, we hate it. It's worse. to sin after we know the Lord. After the Lord has been merciful
to us, it's worse to sin then than before we ever even knew
anything about the Lord. Because now, we're sinning against
somebody we know and love. We don't want to do that. The
believer hates that. And it's discouraging. I grant
you, it's discouraging. And it's shameful. I mean, I
just, for my own self, that's so shameful. How can you think
that? How can you want to do that? How can you do that? How
can you say that? It's so shameful. And it is discouraging,
and it is shameful, it ought to be. But there's no reason
to fear because of it. There's no reason to fear the
father is now gonna cast you out. Yes, he sent his son to
die for you, and Christ died and shed his blood for you, and
he rose again for you. But now you, you've just gone
too far. I mean, this is one sin too many.
How can you sin against this light that God's given you and
he's gonna cast you out? You never have to fear that because
Christ died for all of the sin of all of his people. And his
resurrection is the proof. He justified them all so that
they have no sin. Sinners are saved by grace, not
what we do, not what we don't do. We're saved by grace. We're
not saved by our works. We're saved by Christ who finished
the work for us. And the proof of that is in our
text. Who did the angel tell these two Marys to go to and
tell the Lord's risen? Verse seven, go quickly and tell
his disciples. Tell him he's risen from the
dead and behold, he goes before you into Galilee. There you shall
see him. Lo, I've told you. You go tell
this message, Mary. Tell this message of the forgiveness
of sin to his disciples. They didn't come to the tomb
that morning. Where were they? They were hiding out in case
they got treated the way their master got treated. They didn't
want to get scourged and beaten and crucified. They're hiding
out. They all ran away. They all swore, Lord, I'll die
with you. And when they saw what was happening to the Lord, they
fled. They acted like they had no faith at all. They acted like
they hadn't been taught anything. And what is the message to those
poor, weak disciples? Go tell them the Lord's risen,
and I'll see you in Galilee. The Lord himself said that. Look
at verse nine. And as they departed quickly
from the sepulcher with fear and great joy, oh, they did run. This is a glorious thing. They
ran to bring his disciples word. And as they went to tell his
disciples, behold, Jesus met them saying all hail. And they
came and held him by the feet and worshiped him. And Jesus
said unto them, be not afraid. Go tell my brethren that they
go into Galilee. There shall they see me. The
Lord himself say, go tell my weak, doubting, forgetful disciples. They're my brethren. They're my brethren. I still
love them. I know what they did. But sinners
are saved by grace. Sinners are saved by Christ.
Not your faithfulness and not your word and not your knowledge.
Now, I know you understand this. There's no excuse for our sin.
I'm not making excuse for our sin whatsoever. I'm determined
every day not to sin and I fail before I even get out of bed.
But it sure is a comfort when we do sin to know we have an
advocate with the Father. And our advocate with the Father
is the very one that paid the price for us. And he rose again. So he knows best, I paid the
price. Their sin is forgiven. What a
comfort. And here's the last thing. The
message of the empty tomb is this. We're gonna rise from the
grave again someday too. There's no reason to fear the
grave. You know, the death of Christ
made the grave a pleasant place for our bodies to rest until
Christ returns. Now our bodies will be resting
in the grave, but we, our souls, will be with the Lord until he
returns. I talked to a man one time that
believed in soul sleep, like you just die and then you are
no more, you know, until Christ returns. No, 1 Thessalonians
4 tells us this, when Christ returns, those who've already
died, he brings with him, our souls will be with the Lord.
Our bodies are just going to be resting in the grave. And
when the Lord returns, that soul that's with the Lord is going
to be joined to a resurrected body. It's going to be resurrected
in a glorious body, just like the body of our Lord Jesus Christ. The grave could not hold the
disciple, or the Lord. It couldn't hold his grave anymore,
or his body. And it won't be able to hold
ours either. Sin's gone. Those bodies must be raised in
glorious bodies, just like the body of our Lord. He's the firstfruits. And there's many, many more to
follow. I think if you look over at 1
Corinthians 15, this is the best way, I think, To end this message
on the resurrection, hear from the word of God on this matter. See if this isn't what I told
you. 1 Corinthians 15, beginning in verse 42. So also is the resurrection of
the dead. It's sown in corruption, it's
raised in incorruption. It's sown in dishonor, it's raised
in glory. It's sown in weakness, It's raised
in power. It's sown a natural body. It's
raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there
is a spiritual body. And so it's written, the first
man Adam was made a living soul. The last Adam was made a quickening
spirit. How be it? That was not first,
which is spiritual, but that which is natural. And afterward,
that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth,
earthy. The second man, is the Lord from
heaven. As is the earthy, such are they
also that are earthy. And as is the heavenly, such
are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image
of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.
Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit
the kingdom of God. Neither does corruption inherit
incorruption. Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all
sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment. In the twinkling
of an eye at the last trump, for the trumpet shall sound,
and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we should
be changed. For this corruptible must put
on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when
this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal
shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass
the saying that's written, death is swallowed up in victory. Where
is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord
Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren,
be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the
Lord, for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain
in the