Just three or four verses here
in Acts 1-4. This is a letter from Luke, the
physician, the Gentile. And he's going to write this
book of Acts concerning the acts of the apostles. And this is
the way he begins it, "'The former treatise have I made, O Theopilus,
of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach, until the
day in which he was taken up, after he had through the Holy
Ghost given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen,
to whom also he showed himself alive after his passion by many
infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking
of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. And being assembled
together with them, commanded them that they should not depart
from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which
said he, You have heard of me." And what I was thinking about
was verse 3, he showed himself alive after his passion. And you know the Lord Jesus Christ
is the only founder of any religion that professes to be alive. All other founders of all other
religions, they're dead. And they're still dead. Their
sepulcher is with us until this day, Glenn. They came from the
dust, and they return to the dust. And they're still dust. Only the founder of Christianity,
the Lord Jesus Christ, is alive never to die again. And he's the only man that ever
give infallible proofs that he suffered for a special cause,
to atone for sin, and that he was buried and rose again to
die no more. And the reason he gives us all
these infallible proofs of his resurrection is because Christianity
is built, it is founded upon the truth of the resurrection
of the Lord Jesus Christ. If he has not rose from the dead,
that has some terrible consequences. There is no Christianity if its
founder has not risen physically from the dead. Someone, and I
don't remember who it was, but someone said there were five
essential truths, five great principles upon which Christianity
stands or falls. And if you move one of these
truths from Christianity, then they all fall. And they're these. The first one is God's election. That's a truth that if you remove,
Christianity falls. You say, Bruce, why do you say
that? Because the Scripture says, Except the Lord hath left us
a remnant. Except he hath left us a seed. We'll have all been a Sodom.
We'd have all been made light and took a mark. The second proof,
they said, is this, the redeeming work of Christ. That's essential. Without the shedding of blood,
there is no remission for sin. Remove the sufferings of Christ.
Remove the atoning blood. There is no Christianity. There
is no salvation. I have given you the blood upon
the altar. For it is the blood that makes
atonement for your soul. And thirdly is this, the work
of the Holy Spirit. That's essential. Remove his
work in Christianity, Paul. No man can come to me except
my Father which sent me to him. When you see that word, except,
that means if this don't happen, you're going to perish. And accept
your drawn, accept your called, accept your taught. Who is it
teaches us? The Spirit of God. A new birth
is essential, but we have to be born of the Spirit. Repentance
is essential, but who can repent apart from the Holy Spirit? Break
in our hearts. Except you believe that I am
He, you shall die in your sin. Where does faith come from? It's
a gift. It's a gift. Remove the work
of the Holy Spirit and Christianity falls. The physical resurrection
of the body, that's essential. Some have taught that the resurrection
had passed already, Paul said, and overthrew the faith of sin. There has to be a physical resurrection
of the just as well as the unjust. Paul said this mortal must put
on immortality. Why must there be a resurrection?
Because flesh and blood can inherit the kingdom of heaven. There
has to be a resurrection. We must be changed. This body
has to put off this old, corruptible, vile self. And it has to be changed. There must be a resurrection.
And then the physical resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
that's what we'll look at in just a few minutes today. It's
essential. Look here at what Paul says about
it in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. Look in 1 Corinthians chapter
15. This is what he says about the physical resurrection of
our Lord Jesus Christ. Look in verse 14 of 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 15 and look in
verse 14. Some among the Corinthian church,
they denied the resurrection. They say, how can this be? How
can you raise from the dead? Paul calls them fools, doesn't
he? I'd be careful about calling a man a fool. But you know God
can do it. God can do it. These apostles
did it often. And look here what he says in
verse 14. And if Christ be not risen, if
He's not physically risen from the dead, then our preaching
is vain. Why is our preaching vain? Because
we preach a risen Savior. I preached that Christ died,
He suffered for sins, they buried Him, and He rose again. If that's
not true, I'm just lying to you. Don't believe anything I say.
It's vain. Forget about it. Go home and
watch a good ballgame or something. Let's do something that's profitable,
because if Christ has not risen from the dead, I ain't got a
thing to say that's worth hearing. Two, look at this in the last
part of verse 14, and your faith is also vain. Why is that? Because our faith is in a risen
Savior. Our faith is in a mediator between
God and man. Our faith is not in a baby in
a manger. Our faith is not even in a Christ
on the cross. It's not in a Christ in the tomb.
It's in a Christ who was in the manger. He was on the cross.
He was on the tomb. But Bill, he's not there. He's
risen and He's exalted to heaven. If that's not true and you believe
it, your faith is vain. It's vain. Look what he says
here in verse 15. Yea, and we are found false witnesses
of God. Why is that? Because we're saved
and God raised Him. You crucified him by wicked hands,
but God raised him from the dead. That's what the early church
kept preaching, wasn't it? Peter preached it every time
they gave him an audience. God has raised him from the dead.
But if he's not raised, we'll tell a lie on God. And we should
stop it. We should stop it. But we don't
believe it's a lie, do we? God raised him. And look what
he said in verse 17. And if Christ be not raised,
Not only is your faith vain, but look at this, you are yet
in your sins. Why is that? Well, if Christ
isn't raised from the dead, and He's still dead, our sins aren't
put away, are they? And He's dead because God never
accepted His sacrifice. He was delivered for our offenses.
He was raised again for our justification. to prove that God had accepted
the sacrifice that sin had been atoned for, that sin had been
put away. The greatest evidence that Jesus
Christ succeeded in offering Himself to God for our sins is
this fact, that God raised Him from the dead and set Him at
His own right hand. And look at this, lastly, look
in verse 18. If Christ be not risen from the
dead, look at this sad fact. And they also which are fallen
asleep, those who have died in Christ, are perished. If Christ
is not risen from the dead, you know something? Nobody else ain't
going to rise. When you die, that's it. That's it. There's no hope in the world
to come. You're just deceiving yourself. It's a dream. We might
as well eat and drink and be merry because tomorrow we die
and that's it. Ain't no heaven for us. Ain't
no world to come unless it's hell. We don't have any hope
in a heaven. Why? Because Christ never reigned.
But boy, look at verse 20 and verse 21. This is wonderful.
But now, is Christ risen from the dead and He's become the
firstfruits of them that slept? A lot of people are going to
follow Him. For since by man came death, Adam died, spiritually
and physically, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made
alive." Christ is risen from the dead. He is risen. Now, let's look at it just a
minute. Look back over in Acts 1 and verse 3. The Scripture says here in verse
3 that He showed Himself alive After his passion. He did indeed
suffer, didn't he? And the reason he suffered, nobody
else ever suffered for that reason. He suffered unto death for our
sins. And they buried him. But after
that passion, after he suffered and after his death, he showed
himself alive. Now listen to this. I've got
all this down and got scripture for it. In John 20, verse 18,
Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples, she said, I have
seen the Lord, and he has spoken these things to me. The first
one that saw him was Mary Magdalene. He showed himself alive. In Matthew
chapter 28 and verse 9, he showed himself to the women at the tomb
and they came and held his feet and they worshipped him. And listen to Luke chapter 24
and verse 31 and follow. He showed himself to two of his disciples
on the road to Emmaus, and the scripture says, Their eyes were
opened, and they knew him, and said, The Lord is risen indeed,
and has appeared unto us. He showed himself. He showed
himself. In 1 Corinthians 15, verses 4
through 8, listen to this, where I was, listen to how he showed
himself to these people. Paul said he was buried again
and rose the third day, and after that he was seen of Peter. Then he was seen of the twelve.
Then he was seen of more than five hundred brethren at once.
Then he was seen of James. Then again of all the apostles. Remember when Thomas wasn't there?
He was seen And then when Thomas was there the week later, he
was seen of the Lord. And Paul said, last of all, he
was seen of me. Infallible proofs of the resurrection
of Jesus Christ. And you know something? Of all
of these men and women who saw him, we don't have one account
where any of them ever went back on what they saw. Mary never
did. She never wrote about it, did
she? Over 500 people? You can't get two people hardly
to agree on anything without changing their story, can you?
But after all the time that they lived and witnessed of the resurrection
of Christ, not a one of them said, now wait a minute, I was
telling them that. I really didn't see what they
said they saw. No, they never went back. They never reneged. They never recanted. All of them
said, We saw Him. We saw Him. And consider this. Consider this about these people
who saw the Lord Jesus. Every one of them that we read
about in the Word of God, none of them expected the Lord
to raise from the dead. Not a one of them. The women,
when they had saw the Lord, they went to the disciples and said,
Christ is risen indeed. And the words seemed as idle
tales to those disciples. They knew not the scripture that
he should raise again from the dead. And secondly, the disciples
were expecting an earthly kingdom. When Christ spoke to them and
said, I have to be betrayed, I have to die, I have to be buried,
and I must raise again. Do you know what they said? Lord,
this can't happen to you. Far be this from you. Why did
they say that? They knew nothing of His death
and the resurrection. They thought He was going to
bring about an earthly kingdom, He was going to reign physically
and overthrow the Roman Empire. And you remember after He was
raised from the dead and those two men went on the road to Emmaus
and the Lord Jesus began to talk to them, He said, Why are you
so sad? And they said, we thought for sure this was him. But he
died. He's died and our hopes are gone
now. What was the matter with them?
You mean they didn't know about the resurrection? Seemingly they
didn't. Seemingly they didn't. What convinced all these ignorant
and doubting disciples that he was indeed alive? Well, the scripture
says here, he showed himself to them beyond a shadow of a
doubt. But not only the doubtful, he
not only proved his resurrection to the doubtful, you know he
proved his resurrection to the most skeptical. They not only
were doubtful, you know what Thomas said? I will not believe. He's very adamant. He hasn't
raised from the dead. They said, we saw him. We saw
him, Thomas. I will not believe." What convinced
him that the Son of God had risen from the dead? He said, Come
here, Thomas, put your hands in you, thrust your big old hand
into this open wound in my side. And what did Thomas say? Lord,
all doubt is gone. I was unbelieving, I was doubtful,
I was skeptical, but you have shown to me that it is really
you. You are raised from the dead.
You live. And you know something, brothers and sisters, I believe
these testimonies. I believe these were honest men.
They planned nothing. What the Lord Jesus Christ did
was foreign to them until he made them to understand and know.
I indeed am the Son of God who died and rose again from the
dead. My Lord and my God, he was convinced
many infallible proofs. And consider this about the resurrection
of Christ and see if this is not an infallible proof, the
empty tombs. The Pharisees were scared to
death. that the disciples were going to steal the Lord's body
away and spread the rumor around that he had risen from the dead. They went to Pilate, and they
said, this is what's going to happen. These disciples are going
to come in and steal his body, and if we don't set a guard on
the tomb, and if we're not careful here, the last error is going
to be worse than the first one. They said we shouldn't let him
go as long as we did. We made an error by letting Jesus
of Nazareth preach as long as we did. Let's go make another
error. Let's seal the tomb and make sure they don't steal his
body. And that's what they did, didn't they? They sealed the tomb, they put
one or two soldiers there at the tomb to guard that place,
and they guarded that at the risk of their lives. If that
body came up missing, they lost their lives. And what happened? Why, if those
men, if these poor, if these poor, ignorant and unlearned
and distraught apostles that were hiding out in the upper
room, if they could have got to that body and found it, they
would have never got away with it. I mean, they had employed
the religious power and the power of the states to guard this body.
If those poor, distraught disciples had got that body, they'd have
tracked them down. They'd have got the body back
and exposed their plot. No, the angel said, he's not
here, but he's risen. He'd been stolen. Those poor
disciples, they would have up a room crying, scared to death.
They wouldn't come out of the room, let alone try to get past
these soldiers. He's not here. He's risen. Behold the tomb where he lay. It's empty. And I don't know
if they've ever found that tomb or not, but I know this much.
If they find it, they'll find it empty. Want that? Many infallible
proofs. And consider this, fourthly,
brothers and sisters, consider the neatly wrapped grave clothes
that was in that temple. I used to wonder when the Lord
first saved me, I'd read this, and I thought, what does this
mean? Here's what John said, Then came Simon Peter, and went
unto the sepulcher, and he saw the linen clothes lay. and the
napkin that was about his head, not lined with the linen clothes,
but wrapped together in the place by itself." And I used to think,
what's significant about that? His grave clothes was taken off
of him, and his napkin that was about his face, that was taken
off. And can you imagine the labor that it took to do that?
When they wrapped him in these clothes, and the grave clothes,
the linen grave clothes, they put somewhere between 75 and
100 pounds of spices in there. And they wrapped the body tightly. You couldn't have lived in that
body, shut all the oxygen off. Why, if these disciples had slipped
in there, why would they take all the time to unwrap his body,
fold up the clothes real neatly, and lay them with themselves?
It doesn't make sense, does it? They could have carried him very
easily if they kept him wrapped up. He would have been like a
mummy. But to unwrap him, he would have been limber like a
worm. That's what that means. No, they wouldn't have took time
to do that. I wonder who did that. Reckon the angels did it? I don't
know. Reckon the Lord did it? I don't know that either. But
somebody wasn't in that big of a hurry. Somebody kept the place neat. Somebody took off those clothes.
Wouldn't you love to have been there? Well, we can be there
by this Bible. It takes us right there. And
we can see what happened. Angels, we know they were there.
We know they're ministering spirits. We know they ministered to Him
before. It's not that He needed them, but He used them. I can
just see those two or three holy angels unwrapping that face.
No, they looked at the face of their incarnated Creator. He
said, He's a live glory to God. What a mystery! Oh, let us look
into this. What's all this about? We know
more about it than they do, don't we? Because we're redeemed sinners. They never felt like we did.
Though they are racking the glorious Savior, and they fold those things
up so neatly, and they lay them aside. And then they opened that sealed
tomb. Why did they do that? He didn't
have to have that opened, did he? He can go through walls.
He can go outside this universe into heaven. He's unhindered
even in his physical makeup, his physical bed. Why did they
open the tomb? Not so he could get out. They
needed to get in, didn't they? Come see the place. How are we
going to get in there? Who's going to roll away the
stone? They found it all the way. The tomb, brothers and sisters,
was empty. It was so neat. It was so neat. And the napkin and the grave
clothes lying there by themselves. And consider this, something
that he said in our text here in Acts chapter 1 and verse 3.
These disciples had ample time to check the Lord's identity,
to show and to prove to them who He actually was. Because
verse 3 says, He was seen of them forty days. Forty days. Off and on He appeared
to these disciples. He had been with them three and
a half years. They got to know Him well. Old Peter said, Lord,
I love Your voice. I know Your voice. It's life
to me. When I hear it, it gives me strength.
Life. John said, We've handled him.
We've looked upon him, the Word of life. They got to know him
well. And they spent forty days with him after his resurrection. And they come to this conclusion.
He's the same one. That's the same one that we was
with before he died. There's no doubt about it. We
know him. This is not an imposter that's come on the scene. He's
the same Jesus that was crucified and buried and rose again. We
know that's Him. Forty days. If you spend a lot
of time with somebody and they go away, I mean, you know them
real well, and they go away for three days and come back and
you spend forty more days with them, you can pretty much tell,
can't you? Yeah, that's the same fellow.
He changed it all. You know two of the ways that
they knew He hadn't changed? His message hadn't changed. He
is preaching the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God when He
was with them. And He says here in verse 3, before He ascended,
He preached the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God. The same
message that He preached when He was here with them before.
His message hadn't changed. He said, I told you before that
I must suffer and I must Be betrayed, and the third day I'll raise
again." And he's telling the same thing here. This is what
I told you before. They said, Lord, we remember
now. It's the same message. Same message. Why? Because he's
the same Christ. And I'll tell you something else,
too. He was doing the same miracles. Doing the same miracles. This
is amazing. Brother Glenn brought this up
when he was going through the book of John. Remember the night
when our Lord was still here with him before he suffered?
The disciples had fished all night and caught nothing. And
the next morning they saw a man standing out on the seashore,
and he hollered out to them, Have you got any meat? Have you
caught any fish? No. He said, Cast your nets on
the other side. Remember that? And they brought
in so many fish, their nets began to break. Well, after his resurrection,
the same thing happened again. They were out and they'd fished
all night and caught nothing. And the next morning, there stood
a man on the sea coast. And they didn't know who he was.
And he said, Children, do you have any meat? Have you caught
anything? And they said, No. He said, Cast
your nets on the right side. And they cast their nets on the
right side and they filled their ship, their boats full of fish.
Did they not? And remember what Peter said?
It's the Lord. How did he know that? It hadn't
happened before. He didn't have them before. The
same miraculous Lord doing the same miraculous thing. And then
they came to shore. Remember when He had fed the
5,000 with 5 loaves and 2 fishes? Well, they came to shore. And
lo and behold, they came to shore, and there on the farm was loaves
and fishes. And He said, Come and dine. Come
and dine. Still feeding them. This has
happened before. This is the Lord. He's still
doing miracles today, ain't He? Still doing miracles today. He
sure is. Thomas saw Him, said, My Lord
and my God. Mary heard His voice and said,
My Master. And I tell you, you've heard
His voice too. You've heard the voice of a risen Savior. Haven't
you felt something of the power in your soul of a risen Christ? You ask me how I know He lives?
Well, let's be honest. One of the ways we know He lives,
He lives within my heart. When I know He's there, and I'm
doubtful He's there, I go to the book. I know that. But I
tell you, He is in there, isn't He? He's there. He lives, and
we felt the power of forgiveness, the power of acceptance, the
power of his favor. Oh, we felt the power of a risen
Lord. In conclusion, consider this. The new life and the boldness
that he brought to these four disciples. Man, that's a proof of his resurrection.
This wasn't put on. You know, if some way or another,
and it could never have been, but just for the sake of argument,
what if they had got into that tomb and stole his body away?
That would have pretty much been the end of it, wouldn't it? They
wouldn't have fooled anybody long. But listen to this, on
the day of Pentecost, and the rest of his life, and the rest
of those apostles' lives, those bunch of cowards, that had denied
the Lord and was so fearful. They stood up against the religious
leaders of their day and confronted them with killing the Lord of
glory, and they were bold as a lion. You can't put that on,
can you? That wasn't pretense. What was
that? That was the power of this risen
Savior in their heart. I'll pray the Father, and He'll
send you the Holy Spirit. And don't you depart from Jerusalem
till you be imbued with power from on high." Why didn't the
Spirit come? Because the Lord had risen from
the dead. Boy, they felt the boldness of
it. And they lived in the glory of that resurrection until they
died. Now, don't tell us, you can't
convince us that Christ didn't raise from the dead. Many infallible
proofs. There are just too many proofs
that He didn't. Look how this gospel of the grace
of the Lord Jesus Christ, look what it's done. Look what it's
done to this world. Boy, the world was a dark place,
full of idolatry, worship, worship of devils. And when these men began to take
the gospel, The substitutionary gospel of the grace of Christ
to the world. Look what it did. Our country
was founded because of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do
you know that? And there is some sanity and decency and morality
in this world today. There is some sense left because
of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And when that gospel is taken
away, if God is ever pleased to say, that's it, my judgment
is coming, and He takes it away, you talk about darkness. You
talk about darkness. Our countries want Islam to reign.
They want Sharia law. You better be careful what you
hope for. You may get it. And Hollywood out there wanting
it, they'll be the first to go. Be the first to go. Look at the
good, brothers and sisters, the gospel has done to this world. And it would have never been
so if Jesus Christ had not risen from the dead. And someday He'll
come again, and every child of faith will shout, This is our
God! This is our God! He came, He
suffered, He died, He rose, He ascended, He ruled, and now He's
coming again. We've received His testimony.
This is our God. We've waited for Him. That's
what we're doing now, isn't it? We're waiting for Him, and He's
come! He's come to save us. He's come
to finish the work that He began in our hearts and upon our bodies. Oh, death, where is your sting?
O grave, where is your victory? The sting of death is sin. The
strength of sin is the law. But thanks be unto God which
giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. He has
risen indeed. He has risen indeed. Let's pray.