We worship on the first day of
the week after the pattern of the apostles, because this is
the day of our Lord's resurrection. This is not a Sunday Sabbath. We do not observe any kind of
literal Sabbath. Christ is our Sabbath. But on
the first day of the week, the Son of God, our Redeemer, arose
from the dead. Very early in the morning, they
came to the sepulcher. bringing the spices which they
had prepared, and certain others with them. And they found the
stone rolled away from the sepulchre." You can imagine the confusion,
the dismay, if you had gone to the cemetery and found somebody
had opened up the grave of one you had just buried. The stone
was rolled away from the sepulchre and they entered in and found
not the body of the Lord Jesus. and it came to pass that they
were much perplexed thereabout. Behold, two men stood by them
in shining garments, and they were afraid, and bowed down their
faces to the earth. And they said unto them, Why
seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is
visiting. Remember how he spake unto you
when he was yet in Galilee, saying, The Son of Man must be delivered
into the hands of sinful men and be crucified. He must be
delivered into the hands of sinful men and must be crucified, because
this is according to the purpose of God. This is why he came into
the world, and there is no other way by which we can avoid the
wrath of God and be justified by the grace of God, except through
the sacrifice of God's darling But another thing must be done.
And must the third day rise again. And they remembered his words.
They remembered his words. Thank God, thank God, thank God. When they are most needed, he
causes his own to remember his words. And returned from the
sepulcher and told these things to the eleven and to all the
rest. Now look who the first preachers
were, and it was Mary Magdalene, that gal out of whom the Lord
had cast seven devils, and Joanna, the wife of one of Herod's servants,
a Gentile woman, and the mother of James, Mary the mother of
James, and the other women that were with them, which told these
things. Now look who they preached to,
to the apostles, and their words seemed to them as idle tales
how shameful. Our Lord told them plainly, but
they didn't understand. They didn't believe His word. So when these women came and
told them the Lord was risen from the dead as He told them
He would be, it seemed like they were just babbling on about nothing. And they believed them not. Verse
12. Apparently they kept on pressing
the matter And so Peter said, you know, something's going on.
I'm going to investigate. Then arose Peter and ran to the sepulcher. He never did anything halfway.
And stooping down, he beheld the linen clothes laid by themselves
and departed, wandering in himself, amazed in his soul at that which
was come to pass. Now, we who believe on the risen
Christ have entered into his rest, because he is resting at
the right hand of the Father. The word rest, as it is used
in Scripture with regard to the rest of faith, as it was illustrated
in the Old Testament Sabbath day, implies much more than merely
taking ease. It is a cessation from work. The Lord Jesus Christ having
accomplished the redemption of our souls, having sanctified
God's people, having perfected forever them that are sanctified
by the blood of his cross, having put away sin, having fulfilled
all the will of God as Jehovah's righteous servant, with his own
blood entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal
redemption for us, And he sat down. He quit working. How come? Wasn't nothing else
to do. I said that the way I meant to.
Wasn't nothing else to do. The work was over. Finished. Complete. And because he has
ceased from his work, having accomplished all, we who believe
rest in him. Rest in Him. Faith in Christ. How many ways can I say this?
Faith in Christ is to quit working. To believe on the Son of God
is to quit trying to win God's favor. It is to quit trying to
make yourself acceptable with Him. It is to rest in Christ's
finished work. as our Redeemer. Now as we come
again tonight to this new tomb of Joseph of Arimathea and look
at the place where the Lord Jesus lay, I want to bring some restful
thoughts to your soul. And I have found them restful
to my own soul. I trust they will be to yours.
The title of my message, as I said, is The Tomb Wasn't Empty. But
thank God one thing wasn't there. The body of our Savior is no
longer there. The very first thing to be remembered
is this. Jesus Christ once died. The fact that he's risen from
the dead, the fact that he was laid in the tomb, but is now
risen from the dead is the declaration that he once died. As the Apostle
Paul put it, for in that he died, he died of the sin once. once, but in that he liveth,
he liveth unto God. There is no more offering for
sin. We have a tendency to mock the
superstitious, idolatrous, pathist, and all pathists are superstitious
idolaters. All pathists are, just as well
worship a stump. But we mock them at the thought
of talking about mass, the sacrament as they call it of the Lord's
Supper, being the re-crucifixion of the Lord Jesus, saying that
he is crucified afresh. But to suggest that somehow,
by some means or other, you and I continually make offerings
by which we would make up to God for sin is just as idolatrous
and just as superstitious. Christ died one time, and there
is no more offering for sin. And to offer something for sin
by which to appease God to any degree is to deny that Christ
accomplished redemption. It is to crucify the Son of God
afresh. So as we gather around the place
where the Lord Jesus slept with the rich in His death, See the
stone rolled from the mouth of the tomb. We know he's not there. Yet he assuredly was there. He was crucified, buried, and
he's risen again. He was dead. He didn't just appear
to be dead. He was dead. As dead as those
bodies of the dead in the cemetery down the road. He was dead. There
was no more light in his eyes. No more pulse in his heart. No
more sound in his ears. No more word to come from his
mouth. He was dead. Being made sin for
us, he died under the wrath of God for the satisfying of divine
justice. And by his death, he has fully
satisfied the justice of God and put away our sins. Turn for
a moment, if you will, to Romans chapter 4. Romans chapter 4. We look to the risen Christ who
once died as our only Savior and our only salvation. The whole
of our faith, the whole of our hope, the whole of God's revelation
in this book falls to the ground and mounts to nothing if Jesus
Christ is not risen from the dead. The Son of God arose the
third day as the Scripture said He would, as He declared He would,
and as the Scripture declared He has. Look at Romans 4 verse
25. Christ was delivered for, delivered
for our offenses. Now that word for obviously means
because of. Because he was made sin, he was
delivered to death, and was raised again for, because of, our justification. His resurrection is not that
which accomplished our justification. His resurrection is the declaration
of justification. But he was raised because once
he had satisfied the justice of God, sin being put away, we
were justified. His resurrection declares him
justified in the Spirit. Now the chapter division here
is unfortunate. Read right on as if there were
none. Therefore, therefore, being justified. Put the comma right
there. That's where it goes. By faith
we have peace with God. Our faith in Christ doesn't justify
us. Our faith in Christ, who is our
justification, is that by which we obtain peace in our souls
with God. By faith we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by
faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope
of the glory of God. We stand in grace. having continual
access to the Father, rejoicing in hope. In hope of what? The
glory of God. The glory that awaits us. Not only so, but we glory in
tribulations also. What's that? We're looking for
the glory of God. What's a little tribulation?
What's a little difficulty? Knowing that tribulation worketh
patience, and patience experience. and the experience just increases
our confident hope. And hope maketh not ashamed. This hope that God has given
us in Jesus Christ our Redeemer will never, never, never allow
us to be confused, ashamed, or to make haste. Why? Because the
love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost
which is given unto us in the new birth. The Spirit of God
comes and takes up residence in the hearts of chosen sinners,
giving us life in Jesus Christ, shedding abroad in our hearts
the love of God. How do you know that you're loved
of God? You can sing, Jesus loves me,
this I know, for the Bible tells me so. From the time you start
to talk until the time you go to the grave, And you'll never
have any confident knowledge of God's love because it ain't
found by mom and daddy telling you that God loves you. How do
you know God loves you? Because He lives within my heart. He's come and taken up residence
in me. Read on. For when we were yet
without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly.
For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure
for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth
His love toward us. I recall 39 years ago now, I
went to visit a jeweler in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. I wanted to buy
that pretty blonde ring and ask her to marry me. And when I went
to see the jeweler, he took that little diamond, best I could
do, but he took that thing out and laid it on a black belt. I can see it right now. and put
a light over top of it and made that thing sparkle like the sun.
And what he was doing was he was setting it in the best light
possible. God sets his love in the best
light possible. How's that? In that while we
were yet sinners, Christ died for such worthless wretches as
we are. Christ died for the ungodly,
much more than, what a word, if He's done all this, if He
died to redeem, save, and justify us, much more than being now
justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we
were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more,
be dead sure of this, Being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only so, but we also
joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ. How come? By whom we
have now received the atonement. Some of my friends kind of object
to the translation here. And the word would better be
translated, strictly speaking, reconciliation. But atonement
is pretty good. Atonement means reconciliation. Reconciliation by blood. Now we have received complete
reconciliation with God. Reconciliation is not something
you do. Reconciliation is something you receive. Receive it by the
blood of Jesus Christ the Lord. Tonight I want to show you some
memorials of that reconciliation that is accomplished by the blood
of Christ. Memorials that our Savior left behind for us in
the tomb. What memorials of this fact can
be found in the scriptures? How are they to be used by us?
Let me give you a few of them. First, the Lord Jesus, we're
told in the scriptures, His body was just wrapped up in and covered
with costly spices. Nicodemus, I'm sorry, Joseph
of Arimathea brought a hundred pounds of precious spices with
which he entombed the Son of God. A hundred pounds of myrrh
and aloes. And when our Lord Jesus left
the tomb, I suspect that place smelled like a perfume factory.
No smell of mold and lustiness or death, just the sweet smell
of myrrh and arrows. But what's the significance of
that? Try to put that in a spiritual context. Our Lord Jesus has filled
the grave with the sweetest possible fragrance for his people. It
no longer smells of corruption and decay, but of life. And we can sing with the poet,
why should we tremble to convey these bodies to the tomb? There
the dear flesh of Jesus lay and left a long perfume. The graves
of all the saints he blessed and softened every bed where
should the dying members rest. But with their dying head, since
he arose ascending high, and showed our feet the way, up to
the Lord too shall fly his own in that great day. The bed awaiting
these bodies beneath the earth is perfumed with costly spices,
decked with flowers. Our truest friend once laid his
holy head in the grave before us. You remember the angel's
first word to those women who appeared early in the morning?
Early that first Sunday morning, when the Lord Jesus arose from
the dead, they saw these things and they were afraid. I would
be too. They were afraid. The angel's
very first word, fear not ye, all children of God. Children
of God, don't be afraid to die. It'll be all right. It'll be
all right. There is nothing in the grave
to terrify the believing soul. Nothing. Nothing in the grave
can make afraid one. whose only righteousness is Jesus
Christ, whose only atonement is His blood, whose only acceptance
with God is Him. Yea, though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." Oh, what
sweet spices he's left behind. When I enter that pit, I will
leave sin behind forever. when you have laid my body in
the grave, life will begin for me, the kind of life I can only
begin to dream about now, real life with no sin and no pain
and no possibility of such. Here's the second thing our Savior
left behind. When Peter ran to the tomb, he saw the Lord's grave clothes neatly
folded up. Isn't that wonderful? He didn't
just drop them and leave. He takes them off and folds them
neatly and lays them to one side. His grave clothes. Not some moldy
shroud that Luke tells us in verse 12, linen clothes. He left those grave clothes for
us to look upon. as tokens of his fellowship with
us in our nature. Jesus Christ, God's Son, really
did become a man. He really did it to himself. He really did become obedient
unto death, even the death of the cross. All that you and I
experience in this world All that we experience in this world,
He experienced for us and with us as one of us. There's no pain,
He doesn't know. No sorrow, He doesn't know. No
heartache, He doesn't know. He is touched with the feeling
of our infirmities. Let those great folks fold it
up there. And He says, now when you get ready to go to your tomb,
I've been there. I've been there. Sometimes we
visit museums and we look around. I remember a few years ago, family
went down to San Antonio, Texas and visited the Alamo. And it's
something else to see. One of the best, probably the
second best tour I've ever done in my life. I'm kind of excited. A lot of North Carolina boys
died there, more than there were Texans. You know what she had
hanging up all around there? Flags. Flags. The battle at Alamo
was lost, but the war was won. And they got flags from representing
all the states of the men who fought there hanging up around
that place. How come? To celebrate victory. Our Lord's
grave clothes He left behind as a flag celebrating victory,
declaring that He has made us more than conquerors by His sacrifice
for us. But I think there's something
else here. Those linen clothes, those grave clothes in that fragrant
tomb before my eye of faith symbolize, and I believe symbolize according
to Scripture, the righteousness that Christ has given His people. That righteousness with which
he merited heavenly glory. He said, when the Spirit has
come, he'll convince you of righteousness. Now notice the words, because
I go to my Father. He who is Jehovah's servant,
who came here to bring in everlasting righteousness, could not go back
to glory as Jehovah's servant until righteousness was brought
in. That righteousness by which He merits heaven, He has made
ours, so that in Him, by His righteousness, we merit heaven. And that's not all. That righteousness
is ours. It really is ours. Turn to Revelation 19. Let me
show you. Revelation 19. The psalmist cried, Let thy priest
be clothed with righteousness, and let thy saints shout for
joy. Here in Revelation 19, we have
a picture of the final end of all things. And in verse 6, I
heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, and as
the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thundering,
saying, Alleluia, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. Let
us be glad and rejoice and give honor to Him, for the marriage
of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready. How so? To her was granted that
she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white. For the fine linen is the righteousness
of the saints. When he can't take that too far,
let's see. And he saith to me, Right, blessed
are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb.
And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God. This is not hyperbole. This is
damn right truth. Turn over to Revelation 14. Look
at this. How righteous are these saints? How pure are these saints
as they stand before God in glory? Are these things really true?
Look at verse 4. These are they which were not
defiled with women. Were not defiled with women. Can you imagine such a thing?
Were not. We often say justified means
just as if I'd never sinned. Not quite. Justified means I
never did. God's wiped the slate clean.
God's wiped the slate clean. It's not just as if, it really
is. God says, these are they which
were not defiled with women, for they are virgins, every one
of them. These are they which follow the
Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among
men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb. And in their
mouth was found no guile, for they are without fault." Without
fault. Without fault. Did you see that? Without fault. Before the throne
of God. And these are the true sayings
of God. Turn over to John chapter 20. John adds another thing that
our Lord left behind in the tomb. Verse 6, Then cometh Simon Peter
following him, following John, and went into the sepulcher,
and seeth the linen clothes lie, and the napkin that was about
his head. Not lying with the linen, but
wrapped together in a place by itself. I see that napkin in
the Savior's tomb still. It is that handkerchief with
which He wipes all tears from the eyes of His people, even
now. Oh, there's a day coming when
God shall wipe all tears from our eyes forever. And there shall
be no more weeping, or sighing, or sorrow, or pain, or death,
or sin, and the former things shall be passed away. But even
now, our crucified Savior, risen from the dead, with his finished
work as our substitute, dries our weeping eyes. How so? The widow and the orphan, the
widower and the brokenhearted father, Morning brothers and
morning sisters and morning friends, take this handkerchief and wipe
their tears away forever, believing Him. Thus saith the Lord. refrain thy voice from weeping,
and thine eyes from tears, for thy work shall be rewarded, saith
the Lord, and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. Thy dead men shall live together
with thy dead body. The earth shall cast out her
dead. We bury our dead with confident
hope. Now when I say our dead, I'm
talking about taking you, my brother, my sister out to the
cemetery and saying goodbye for a little while. I'm not talking
about how we're dead naturally. I refuse to pretend, I refuse
to pretend that someone leaving this world has entered into heavenly
glory who refuses to believe my God. I won't make that pretense
with me and I won't make it with you. Don't expect it. It ain't
going to happen. To do so is to dishonor Him and
to dishonor the gospel of His grace. It won't happen. Not going
to do it. Well, how do you handle that?
I bow to Him. He who died for me does everything
right. He does everything right. And
while the heart may break, and we may weep and weep and weep,
we will rejoice in the Lord who died for us and rose again. And we'll dry our tears and we'll
go on following Him. But with regard to God's saints,
when bereavement comes, Oscar, it doesn't make the pain any
less. It doesn't make the pain any less. No. Sometime back, a friend dying,
and a young fellow still wet behind the ears, he said, I don't
understand what all the sorrows about, and glory be to the Lord.
I said, you hadn't lost somebody that you've loved for 30 years. Now the pain's not any less.
Not any less. Oh, but the joy is hope. Oh,
the blessed hope. Oh, the prospect. We bury our
dead with the confident hope. of resurrection glory. Not only
so, but with the sacrifice of our Savior, He who is now seated
at the right hand of the majesty on high, our hearts breaking
with repentance before Him. We wipe our eyes. Our hearts
filled with trouble, trouble we can't explain, trouble we
can't begin to comprehend, trouble that just seems to constantly
plague our lives. He wipes our eyes. He who brought
the trouble is He who died in our stead. He has a good purpose. I've often written to friends
going through difficulty. I said to them, if I could just
take away the pain, I would. But He who loves you infinitely
more than I can imagine loving you is the one who sent the pain. And He did it because He loves
you. He'll take it away when it's best. With the risen Savior,
our crucified Redeemer, our eyes, weeping with fear, are dried
by His gracious hand. Well, believers aren't supposed
to fear. Maybe not, but we do. And the
psalmist said, what time I am afraid, I will trust in Him. Our Lord left something else
behind in the grave. He left angels there. I don't ever remember
reading anywhere in the book about angels being in a tomb
before. And I don't ever remember reading
that he took them away. Well, what's the significance
of that? When his Lazaruses die, the angels of God fly away with
them into Abraham's bosom as Michael kept the body of Moses. So the angels of God guard the
dust of God's elect until the resurrection morning. There's
something else he left there. When Mary and Joanna and Peter
and John came to the tomb, they walked in because the huge stone
at the mouth of the tomb had been rolled away. But they didn't
stay there. They walked out the same way.
What did he leave? He left a way out. He left a way out of death. A
way out of spiritual death. A way out of physical death. A way out of eternal death. And
that way out is Christ. An angel came and rolled away
the stone from the tomb. and sat down on the stone. And our Lord Jesus Christ, the
great angel of the covenant, has taken away the bars of death
so that for God's people, death is a prison with no bars and
no walls and no doors. Nothing to make us afraid, nothing
to hold us, but rather absolute liberty. And soon we shall rise in His
glory forever. One more thing. I've never been inside, well
I have too. I stepped inside a tomb a time
or two. But never been in one that was
shut up. But I'll tell you what I suspect.
I suspect that the tomb is a place of utter darkness. That's why so many folks are
afraid of it. We tell our sons and daughters,
don't be afraid of the dark. You are. Why shouldn't they be? I'm not afraid of the dark. I'm
still afraid of the dark. Not the kind that's out there,
but darkness bothers me. I fear what I can't see. I fear
that which has no light shining before it. I fear it. It causes
me to shake a little. But our Lord Jesus left light
in the tomb. He had brought life and immortality
to light. The tomb is no longer a place
of darkness, but a place of light. Light. You'll bury this body. in the cold, dark earth. Cover my face and cover my body
with the cold bods of the earth and all light blocked out. Oh, no. But nobody knows what
awaits. I do. I do. I have absolute confidence. Confidence
is not even a strong enough word. I know what awaits me. Soon I
shall see His face, and that's all light. Thank God the tomb
wasn't empty. Amen.