The Gospel Part 2

And but there is no, there can be no repentance without a

recognition of sin. And but then also that he died

according to the scriptures. And we looked at a lot of

different prophecies last week that prophesied that Jesus was

going to come, that prophesied that he was going to die, that

prophesied how he was going to die.

Many of those things that were that were given to us in Psalms,

in Isaiah, we're all proven to be true.

And not just in Matthew, you know, we only looked at Matthew,

but Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, all of them mention it.

Of course, then even Paul and Peter and others mentioned them

as well. Different things that came true

as a result of a fulfillment of prophecy.

Every single thing that was prophesied about Jesus Christ

came true. Not one of them failed.

Which is an amazing, amazing thing, considering how many

years, the period of time over which the Bible was written.

There's no way that there could have been, you know,

collaboration. And you write this and then

we'll write this. There's no way that it's

possible they were separated by hundreds and even thousands of

years. And so it's an amazing thing to

find out that the Bible is true. So we find out, first of all,

that Christ died for our sins. But then #2 and this is on page

22, Christ was buried. And I'll, I'll see about getting

a few people to read tonight. We do have some verses, but most

of them are all kind of in the same general area.

So maybe a little bit easier for us all to just kind of turn to

as many of these as we can. But First Corinthians chapter

1 Corinthians 15:4

15, verse 4 says that and that he was buried.

Now his burial, let's turn over to John chapter.

Keep a, keep a bookmark or ribbon or something there in

First Corinthians 15, because we are going to come back to it in

a few different spots there in First Corinthians 15.

But John, chapter 19, his burial proved that he really died.

John 19 · chapter mention

And that sounds silly to say that of what?

Why wouldn't you bury somebody that died?

But there's there are people out there who is it's known as the

swoon theory. In other words, that Jesus kind

of just went into a coma for a few days and he woke up out of

that coma and that's what allowed him to come up out of

the ground. He swooned.

He wasn't really dead, but the fact that he was buried, OK, He

didn't merely faint. He didn't, He didn't merely

appear to die, as some false teachers have claimed.

The reason the soldiers didn't break Jesus's legs is because he

was already dead. And by the way, that was one of

the prophecies that was fulfilled.

Not a bone of his would be broken.

They pierced his side and the Bible says the blood in the

water came out. They broke the legs of the other

thieves. Now, the reason why it would it

was necessary for them to break somebody's legs is because

essentially the way that you died during a crucifixion was

from asphyxiation. Now, obviously there was a lot

of blood loss and everything else.

Jesus was whipped more than than a normal prisoner would have

been whipped. He was forced to carry his cross

and and that may be one of the reasons why he died sooner than

the than the thieves that were crucified on either side of him.

But essentially what happened is when you're hanging there on the

cross, you get to the point where you're sinking down so far

that you, you, you really can't. You're gasping for breath.

Well, obviously your feet have been nailed through them too.

And so it's so excruciatingly painful to push yourself back up

just to get a breath that many of them would hang there as long

as they could. And the breasts would get more

and more shallow until eventually they they were going

to die if they didn't push themselves up.

And so they did. They would push themselves up

and then they begin that whole slow process all over again.

But when they were ready to take them down off the cross, they

would break their legs. Now you can no longer push

yourself up and you're going to die from that asphyxiation.

And that's, that's, that was just a horrible, horrible death.

It was the, IT was one of the worst things that they could

come up with as far as the Romans, as far as how they could

cause somebody extreme suffering while they were dying.

Many times then the, the bodies would would stay up on the cross

sometimes for days while they're waiting for death to come.

And, and, and sometimes even after death came, they would

still leave the bodies up there for days.

The dogs would come and many times they were lower to the

ground. The dogs would come and start

eating the body. And especially if it was, if it

was a criminal that didn't really have much of A family or

anything, somebody had to come claim the body eventually would

get thrown into a pauper's grave if it didn't, but the body was

desecrated. They, they left him up there on

those crosses many times as an example to other people.

You don't want this to happen to you.

And, and, and so that's, that's, that's why they would have done

that. They came, they broke the legs

of both of the thieves that were crucified on the other side of

Christ. But they didn't have to break

his legs. Why?

Because he was already dead. If he was in a coma, he still

would have been breathing. Even if he was just unconscious,

he still would have been breathing and they would have

broken his legs and made sure that he was dead before they

brought him off of the cross. Certainly they were not going to

allow this man, the one that they considered to be a

blasphemy, blasphemer, and and Public Enemy #1 to come down off

of that cross without being dead.

And so they made sure that he was dead.

And the fact that they didn't break his legs just goes to

prove that the Roman soldiers were convinced that he was dead

before they put him in that in that grave.

John chapter 19 and verse #31 the Jews therefore, because it

John 19 · chapter mention

was the preparation that the body should not remain upon the

cross on the Sabbath day. Now this is something that we're

going to come back to because this is important for that

Sabbath day was in high day. That's important.

We saw Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they

might be taken away. Then came the soldiers and break

the legs of the 1st and of the other, which was crucified with

him. But when they came to Jesus and

saw that He was dead already, they break not His legs, but one

of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side and forthwith

came there out blood and water. So His burial proved that He

really died. He was already dead when they

got to Him. Then the Bible says this in

Matthew chapter 12. Let's turn over there, Matthew

Matthew 12 · chapter mention Matthew 12 · chapter mention

chapter 12 and verse #40 that He was in the grave for three days

and three nights. And this is significant as well.

Now this is also, This is where Catholic tradition differs from

the word of God and why it's also very important that even

Baptist tradition be not justified, but I guess maybe

justified is the right word, corroborated if you will, with

the word of God. We need to make sure that we're

not doing it just because this is what everybody has already

always done. We're not just saying it this

just because this is what somebody has always said.

Now, you know that we celebrate Good Friday, right?

Jesus Christ was crucified on Friday.

He came up out of the grave on Sunday.

And so we celebrate Good Friday. No possible way, no possible way

that Jesus could have been crucified on a Friday if you

follow what the Bible says. Now here's what the Bible says

in Matthew chapter 12 and verse #40 For as Jonas Jonah was 3

Matthew 12 · chapter mention

days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son

of Man be 3 days and three nights in the heart of the

earth. Now we know that Jesus rose from

the dead early on Sunday morning.

The Bible says that in Luke 24, if he was in the grave for three

days and three nights, he died either on Wednesday or Thursday.

Now it's a false idea then that the Catholic Church has come up

with. I have no idea what they have to

gain by having Jesus Christ crucified on Friday.

But if you, if he, if he died on Friday and was put in the grave

on Friday afternoon, he would have been there Friday night and

he would have been there Saturday night.

And that's it. No possible way that he could

have been in the grave for three nights.

Now you could say, well, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, you could get

3 parts of days there and say that he was in the grave for

three days. But you cannot get 3 nights by

having somebody crucified on Friday.

Now let me give you a few things here that might be interesting

to you. I think Jesus was was crucified

on a Wednesday. I'm not going to argue with

somebody that thinks it's Thursday, but let's turn over to

Matthew chapter 27. Does it really matter?

Matthew 27 · chapter mention

Probably not. The thing that matters is that

Jesus Christ did die and he was put in the grave and he rose

from the dead. But I think it's interesting to

to go through this anyway. We just read in Matthew chapter

Matthew 12 · chapter mention

12 and verse #40 that the Bible says for as Jonas was 3 days and

three nights in the wills belly, so shall the Son of Man be 3

days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Had the scriptures just said three days then I can understand

where somebody would say Friday. But when you say 3 days and

three nights, that seems to indicate that it has to be 324

hour periods, right? Why do you say day and night if

you didn't mean a full day right?

24 hour periods that Jesus was in the ground.

Now there's three different things that are at play here

when it comes to the, the, the, the, the way that a day was

calculated. The the Roman day began at 6:00

AM OK, so for us, our day begins when 12:00 AM and it ends at

12:00 AM the next day, right? That's how our day goes.

The Roman day actually began at 6:00 AM and ended at 6:00 AM the

next morning. The Jewish day began at sunset

and went through sunset of the next day.

OK, now Matthew chapter 2027 now verse and actually Matthew 27,

Mark 15, and Luke 23 all say the exact same thing here.

I would say that Jesus Christ was placed on the cross at about

9:00 in the morning somewhere around there.

And we and we can see that from Matthew chapter 27 verse 45.

Matthew 27:45

Now from the 6th hour there was darkness over all the land until

the 9th hour. The 6th hour was noon.

The 9th hour was 3:00. And so the because if you if you

start your day at 6:00 in the morning the way the Jews did the

the first hour would it be 6:00. The third hour would be 9:00,

the 6th hour would be noon, right?

The 9th hour would be 3, and so on.

It would just keep going on that way.

So when the Bible says that the darkness came over all the land,

that was Jesus was already Cruz. He had already died by that

point, right? So if you consider that he was

put on the cross maybe somewhere around 9:00 in the morning.

He hung there until he died around noon.

The darkness came over the face of the earth.

The dead came up out of the graves.

The veil in the temple was rent. All of those things happen.

The Bible says that there was darkness for the space of those

three hours. The 6th hour to the 9th hour,

noon to 3:00. That's when Jesus, about the 9th

hour. I'm sorry.

Yeah, I said that the 6th hour, darkness came over.

He died at the 9th hour. My God.

My God, why has thou forsaken me?

Some of them heard that, thought he was calling for Elijah.

They came and brought water. I mean vinegar and put it up to

his mouth and everything else. Verse #50 The Bible says Jesus,

when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the

ghost. He died.

And so then verse 57 the Bible says this is Matthew 27.

When the even was come, there came a rich man of Arimathea

named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus's disciple.

He went to Pilate and begged the body of Jesus.

Then Pilate commanded the then then Pilate commanded the body

to be delivered. And when Joseph had taken the

body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his

own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock.

He wrote a great stone and so on.

All of those things that are happening there's, that was

evening by that point, right? The Jewish, the Jewish day

started at sunset. And so you'd have to say that

somewhere around 4:00, five o'clock, maybe even 6:00 when

Jesus was actually put into the grave, right?

He was still hanging on the cross at 3:00 in the afternoon.

They had to go request the body. They had to take the body down.

They had to prepare the body for burial and they had to put it in

the grave and, and maybe they did it quickly and they could

get that done within three hours.

Now, if you know, if you remember, I should say from the

pictures in the diagrams that I showed you, when, when we were

going through all this stuff about Israel, the place where

Jesus was crucified and the place where Jesus was buried

would have been very close to each other.

So it was not like they had to take him across town and, you

know, transport his body and all of those things.

They would literally have taken him off the cross, walked across

the garden, and put him in the grave, right?

So it wouldn't have taken them that long to do all of those

things. But all of that to say that

probably somewhere around 4-5, maybe even 6:00 of that day,

whatever day that happened to be, Wednesday or Thursday, Jesus

was put in the ground. I'm saying that I believe that

it was Wednesday. And so I'm going to say Jesus

was put into the ground or put into that grave at about 5:00 on

Wednesday night. The Bible says this in Leviticus

Leviticus 23 · chapter mention

chapter 23 and verse #5 through 7, that the first day of the

Feast of Unleavened Bread was a Sabbath day, and it was actually

a high day. The Bible says that John chapter

John 19 · chapter mention

19. Let's go back over there, All

right? John chapter 19.

John 19 · chapter mention

This was not just the beginning of a regular Sabbath.

John chapter 19. A regular Sabbath would have

John 19 · chapter mention

begun at sunset on Friday, but this was a high Sabbath, and so

the Passover Sabbath came on Thursday that week.

And that's what the Bible says in John chapter 19 and verse #31

John 19 · chapter mention

I'm in verse chapter 20, John chapter 19 and verse 31.

John 19 · chapter mention

The Jews, therefore, because it was the preparation that the

body should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath day, for

that Sabbath day was in high day.

It was not a normal Sabbath. It was the Sabbath that actually

started the day before that. So at about sunset on Thursday,

he had been in the grave for one day and one night, right?

Because by sunset you would, you would assume by sunset on

Wednesday night he was in the ground.

Wednesday night to Thursday night would have been one night

and one day. Thursday night to Friday night

would have been two nights and two days.

Friday night to Saturday night would have been three nights and

three days. And somewhere after that Jesus

rose from the dead. Right when the ladies got there,

when the women got there to and the Bible says they they rose up

early that Sunday morning and they went to the grave.

He was already gone, right? He was already gone, so the only

way that you can make Thursday work would be all right.

You counted a part of a day for Thursday, Thursday night, Friday

night, Saturday night, right? If he went into the grave on

Thursday night, you have, you have Thursday, Thursday night,

Friday night, Saturday night. It just, it doesn't give you

enough time for that to happen. It would have to be some time on

Sunday if you're talking. And now this is what I'm saying.

I'm not going to argue with somebody that says they believe

Jesus was, was, was died on a Thursday because the Bible does

not say that it was 24. I mean, it was 3 literal 24 hour

periods that Jesus was was in the, you know, in the grave.

You assume that because it says days and nights, three days,

three nights. You assume that it was a 24 hour

period. And that's where I come up with

Wednesday. If you said Thursday and you

wanted to count a part of a day on on on Sunday, then that's

that's fine. I'm not going to argue with you

against that, argue against you with that.

But the woman came early on Sunday morning our time he was

already gone. So the expression on the third

day in the Gospels referring to his resurrection in our day in

our in our terminology would have been after the third day.

We would we would say after the third day he rose again.

And so Christ was, I believe, crucified on Wednesday.

Maybe you could say that he was crucified on Thursday.

There's one thing that I do know he was not crucified on Friday.

No way that he could have been crucified on Friday because that

was that there's, there's the only nights that you can get

would be Friday night and Saturday night.

And that doesn't leave us enough time.

He didn't raise on Monday morning.

He rose on Sunday morning. The Bible says the first day of

the week. So interesting little study

there. He died either.

And that's where brother Cloud there in the notes says that he

died either on Wednesday or Thursday.

I think there's compelling, compelling arguments for both.

There's there's compelling arguments for Wednesday or

Thursday, but I don't there's no, there's nothing that allows

us to say that Christ was crucified on Friday.

But then the Bible says that his burial also fulfilled prophecy.

It was according to the scriptures.

If you go, you don't have to go back over there.

In fact, let's go to Isaiah 53. But the Bible says that he was

buried and that he rose again the third day according to the

Scriptures. So his burial was also in

fulfillment of prophecy. Isaiah chapter 53, one of the

Isaiah 53 · chapter mention

one of the greatest passages of now talking about Christ in the

Old Testament, I believe Isaiah chapter 53 talking all about the

Isaiah 53 · chapter mention

what he was going to suffer for us.

But Isaiah chapter 53 and verse #9 the Bible says and he made

Isaiah 53 · chapter mention

his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death

because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his

mouth. So that prophecy that was

written, he says here about 710 years before Jesus was born, it

was fulfilled when Jesus was taken down off the cross by

Joseph of Arimathea, who the Bible says was a very rich man.

Put Joe's put Jesus's body into a into a grave, which the Bible

also said wherein never man was laid and he stayed there.

Now I will say this. Why is I mean, what is the

significance of that? It's not like you unbury

somebody and put another body in it, right?

I mean, you think about how people are buried today.

Obviously you're going to put them in a new grave.

Not so in the Old Testament times.

They would dig a cave into the, OR dig a hollow out the side of

a cave or just hew hew something out of a rock if if it was solid

rock there. And what they would do is they

would put that body in there for about a year and after a year

the decomposition had all pretty much taken place.

They would go in there and they would gather up the bones of

that person who had died and they would put it in what was

called an ossuary or a bone box. And then they would put it

wherever they wanted it to be. They usually would not leave it

in the in the grave. They would take it out and put

it in different places, which is probably what they did when they

carried Joseph's body out of Egypt, right.

It was probably just a bone box. And a bone box is about the

size, probably about the size of the pulpit in width and in

depth. And, and usually about this big

or so really not all that big. And, and depending on how

wealthy you were, that that determined what kind of, you

know, what kind of ossuary you had and what it was decorated

like and all of those things. But that's why it's significant

when you say wherein never man was laid, nobody who had ever

been laid in the grave that Jesus was laid in Joseph of

Arimathea as a wealthy man would have dug that for himself and

for his family, and nobody had been buried in it yet.

And so it's very interesting that way as well.

But that was prophesied 710 years before Jesus actually was,

was buried in that grave by Joseph of Arimathea.

Now the other thing then #3 the third part of the Scripture, as

we read in First Corinthians chapter 15, verse 4, and that he

1 Corinthians 15:4

rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.

His resurrection was prophesied in Psalm 16 and verse #10 Let's

go and look at that. That was actually written 1000

years before Jesus came. Psalm 16 and verse #10 For thou

wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine

Holy One to see corruption. Had Jesus's body been in the

grave for longer than three days, He would have started to

see corruption. His body would have started to

decompose. All the things that happened

after death would have easily happened to him.

It didn't. And that was a prophecy that was

fulfilled. Again, His resurrection proved

that He is the Son of God. Let's go over to Romans chapter

Romans 1 · chapter mention

1. Romans, chapter 1.

Romans 1 · chapter mention

Romans chapter 1 and verse #4 The Bible says and declared to

Romans 1 · chapter mention

be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of

holiness, by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus prophesied

that he would rise again on the third day.

Matthew 16 verse 21 says from that time forth began Jesus to

Matthew 16:21

show unto his disciples how that he must go into Jerusalem and

suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes

and be killed and be raised again the third day.

If he had not done that, then he would have been proven to be a

false prophet and not the Son of God that he claimed to be.

That's the difference between Jesus and everybody else that's

ever claimed to be something special, claimed to be a

prophet, claimed to be important.

A Jesus is the only one that raised from the dead.

Everybody else, you can go see their grave, you can see their

bones. Jesus is gone.

And that's, that's the amazing thing about the gospel.

So is there evidence then that the gospel is true?

Well, Paul gave 2 great evidences of the truth of the

gospel. And first of all, we have the

Old Testament prophecies that prove that he was, that the

gospel is true. And we've looked at a lot of

verses. So we're not going to do that.

But he died and rose again according to the Scriptures, the

Bible, they, we've already looked at these things, but the

Bible prophecy is a great, great miracle.

We don't even know how what will happen tomorrow yet.

The Bible's prophecies describe events thousands of years in the

future with detailed exactness. And as I mentioned a little bit

ago, every single one of those prophecies about Jesus in the

Old Testament came true in the New Testament.

The second thing is the eyewitness testimonies that

prove that the gospel is true and you should be there.

In First Corinthians chapter 15, we'll read verse #5 and that he

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention

was seen of Cephas. Then of the 12 after that he was

seen of above 500 brethren at once, of whom the greater part

remain under this present, but some are falling asleep.

In other words, what Paul is saying is, hey, some of these

have died, but there's a huge number of these that are still

alive. Go ask him if they saw Jesus

alive after he rose from the dead, 500 of them saw him at

once. Go ask them.

They're still alive. You can still ask him today

after that verse 7, he was seen of James, then of all the

apostles and last of all, he was seen of me also as of one born

out of due time. Paul said even I saw Jesus after

he raised from the dead. By the way, that was one of the

things that allowed him to be an apostle.

You had to see the risen Christ and, and, and Paul did verse #9

for I am the least of the apostles, that I'm not meant to

be called an apostle because I persecuted the Church of God.

But the Bible is not a blind religious faith.

It's based on many infallible proofs.

And that's what the Bible says in Acts chapter 1 and verse #3

Acts 1 · chapter mention

In fact, if you want to turn over there, it's a great verse.

Acts chapter 1 and verse #3 Jesus the Bible says, to whom

Acts 1 · chapter mention

also he showed himself alive after his passion by many

infallible proofs, being seen of them 40 days, and Speaking of

the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.

This is not just that, Oh, I saw him at a distance and it sure

looked like it could have been Jesus.

No, Thomas saw him in the upper room, and he put his fingers in

his hands. He put his first in his side,

proving that it was Jesus. Jesus was there with him for 40

days, having conversations, talking with them.

It was not just a spirit, It was not just an apparition.

It was not just somebody who looked like Jesus, it was Jesus

and they knew it. Hebrews Chapter 11 verse one

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

tells us that that biblical faith has substance and

evidence. Faith is the substance of things

hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

So the resurrected Christ, as we just read in First Corinthians

15, was seen by more than 500 people on one occasion.

When Paul wrote this epistle, many of the eyewitnesses were

still alive. He was not writing about things

that had happened long ago and passed down from generation to

generation by word of mouth and dependence on man's valuable

memory. And by the way, I would add to

that, that if what he wrote was false, it would have been easily

disproven. There would have been many, many

people who said, you're making stuff up.

We were there. We never saw him.

We were there. The tomb was still sealed 2

weeks later. You know, it was right outside

the city. It was.

I mean, they would have gone in and out of that gate all the

time as they went in and out of the city.

It's not like it was in some remote corner of the world

somewhere. And this just happened in a in a

vacuum or in a bubble where nobody can see it.

Everybody was there. Everybody saw it.

And when Paul is saying it, Paul is using that to back up his own

evidence. Hey, every 500 people saw it at

one time. And not just that 500 people saw

it, but most of them are still alive.

Go talk to him. Go ask him they saw him.

Even even historical records from men like Josephus, a Jewish

historian, and you can still read Josephus today.

I have I have all of the works of Josephus.

The words are about this big on the page.

It's a thick book with a lot of writing.

And he wrote a lot of stuff about things that the Bible

doesn't even really mention, just historical things that were

happening during that time. But all of the things that

Josephus wrote corroborate the Bible, including everything that

he wrote about Jesus. And he was Jewish.

Don't forget, he was not writing it from a perspective that

really looked on Jesus favorably.

But when you have somebody who is objective and will just write

what he sees, it backs up everything that the Bible says.

So there's not, it's not just that Paul is writing.

It's not just that 500 people saw him.

It's that many other people saw him too.

This resurrection dramatically changed the lives of those who

saw Christ. Let's go over to John, chapter

John 20 · chapter mention

20. Before he rose, the disciples

were fearful. They were in hiding from the

authorities. What what changed about it?

Well, Jesus was back. And it's not just that they hid

the body. And now they got this, you know,

this strong determination that they're going to go stand up

against the Roman Empire and doesn't matter if you try to

kill us, kill us, we're just going to keep preaching the

gospel. If they knew.

So here's the thing. Many of these, many of the

disciples of Christ and especially the apostles and

those who were alive at that time died horrible martyr

deaths. Every single one of them, with

the exception of John, who was actually exiled on the Isle of

Patmos, died an unnatural death. They were beheaded.

They were they had they were drawn, they had all kinds of

things that were hap that happened to them.

And even Peter, the Bible says, again, this is according to

tradition, the Bible doesn't say this, but Peter was crucified

and he did not deem himself worthy to be crucified in the

same manner that Christ was crucified.

So he asked to be crucified upside down and about.

And history says, not the Bible, history says that Peter was

crucified upside down. You don't go to the cross and

get crucified upside down for something you know to be a lie.

When it finally gets to the point where they're ready to

take your life, you say OK, OK, OK, it's not worth that, right?

What? What motivation did they have to

perpetuate a lie about Jesus? There was 0 motivation for them

to do it. In fact, there would have been a

lot of motivation for them to say the exact opposite of that,

right? And to go along with everything

that the Roman government said and everything else right have

been a whole lot of motivation for them to do that.

And yet every single one of them was willing.

And many of them did give their lives for the cause of Christ

because they believed so strongly, because they were

eyewitnesses of the fact that Jesus had risen from the dead.

But they were, they were fearful, they were in hiding.

Verse #19 Then the same day at evening being the first day of

the week, when the doors were shut, where the disciples were

assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the

midst and said unto them, peace be unto you.

After they saw the risen Christ, they were bold.

They were willing to lay down their lives for the faith.

And not just willing. Many of them did.

Paul did. Paul was beheaded at Rome.

So many of them, so many of them were persecuted.

But the resurrection, in fact, this is this is great.

Let's let's turn over to John Chapter 7.

John 7 · chapter mention

You're not too far from there. We talked about this actually

when we went through the book of James a few months ago.

But the resurrection actually even convinced Jesus his own

half brother James. And we say half brother because

Joseph was James his father, but not Jesus his father.

John Chapter 7 and verse #5 the Bible says.

John 7 · chapter mention

For neither did his brethren believe in him.

James did not believe that Jesus Christ was the Messiah until he

rose from the dead. First Corinthians chapter 15.

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention

If you had a bookmark there, you can just flip right back over to

it. The Bible singles out James

verse #7 after that he was seen of James, then of all the

apostles. And the Bible says in the book

of James that he believed on Jesus after he saw him and his

resurrection. His brothers didn't believe him

until he resurrected from the dead.

If that's not a proof, I don't know what is.

The resurrection also convinced Paul converted him from being a

bitter enemy of Christ. From an earthly perspective, and

this is a great point, Paul had nothing to gain by switching his

allegiance from the Jewish leaders of that day.

The the the Sanhedrin and of course the he was a Pharisee of

the Pharisees. He said to become a Christian.

He had every motivation not to do that.

He was he was the big man, right?

He had he had the authority to go and just do anything that he

wanted to do to these Christians.

And yet he saw Jesus Christ alive after his resurrection,

and it changed his life to the point where not only was he

willing to give up all that status, now not only was he

willing to give up all the power that he had, he became the

haunted. The hunter became the haunted to

the point where Paul actually lost his life by having his head

taken off of his shoulders. So back in First Corinthians

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention

chapter 15, verse #2 says this. Actually, let's just go to verse

one for context. Moreover, brethren, I declare

unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also

you have received, and wherein ye stand, but by which also you

are saved, if you keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless

ye have believed in vain. So what then does it mean to

believe in vain? Paul probably means that there

are ways to believe that don't result in salvation.

And so here's a couple things that we'll talk about as we

close out this section tonight. Number 11 can believe in vain by

believing the wrong things. Let's turn over to John chapter

John 20 · chapter mention

20. Sorry, John chapter 2 for a

John 2 · chapter mention

little bit of a little bit of context here to see what what

he's talking about when he says that you can believe in vain by

believing the wrong things. Verse #23.

Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, in the feast day,

many believed in His name when they saw the miracles which he

did. But Jesus did not commit Himself

unto them, because He knew all men, and needed not that any

should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.

These Jews believed on Jesus as a as a worldly provider, as

somebody who would feed and protect them, instead of

believing on Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

And there's a big difference, right?

There's a lot of people who believe, right, who have faith,

and this is what he says. Likewise, many today believe on

Jesus in wrong ways. They come to Jesus, they pray to

him so that it'll help them with their problems or build up their

self esteem or make them wealthy or heal them or some other

thing, rather than humbling themselves as sinners and

trusting him solely as their savior.

So there's a lot of people who will believe in God, right?

I believe God. I'm a Christian, they, they

associate themselves with Christianity because they

believe God or, or many times they'll make a deal with God.

If you Get Me Out of this situation, then I will do this

for you, right? Many, many, many people have

made that that decision in their life.

I'm drowning. If you, if you save my life,

I'll give my life to you. And so God saves them and they

give their life to God. That's their salvation

experience. They believe on Jesus.

Well, they're believing in the wrong things, right?

It's not believing on Jesus Christ for salvation.

It's believing on him as a protector.

It's believing on him as, as a provider.

It's believing on him as, as all kinds of other things, but not

as a savior. And we, we need a provider.

We need a protector. If without God's protection,

without God's provision, without God's everything, we have

nothing. But what we need more than

anything else is not food, It's not protection.

What we need more than anything else is somebody to save us from

our sins. And when you start getting

specific and start talking about Jesus as the savior from your

sins, all the sudden people don't want to talk about that

anymore. They'll believe in Jesus, right?

Jesus loves you. Jesus is my copilot.

You know, all the bumper stickers and everything else.

But then when it comes to Jesus being the savior from your sin,

that's not the Jesus that I want to believe in, right?

And, and, and having faith or talking about your faith, but

you can still have faith in the wrong thing, right?

You can say that you have faith in that chair that it's going to

hold you up. And you can even go over there

and sit down in that chair. But I'm not talking about that

chair. I'm talking about this one,

right? And, and honestly that I mean,

you, you have that with a lot of different religions in the

world, right? This is what the Catholic Church

says you have to do, believe in Jesus and do all the sacraments

and be a good person and make sure you go to the priest and

have your sins forgiven and make sure that before you die you get

your last rites and all of those things, and then you have a

possibility of going into heaven.

OK, well, I believe that. I believe it's going to hold me

up and you sit in it, but you're sitting in the wrong chair.

This is the one that's actually going to take you to heaven

because this is what the Bible says about how to get there.

So you're believing in Jesus for all of these things that you can

get out of him or all of these things that he can do for you

when what you need is a savior from your sins.

That's the Jesus that we need to believe in.

And there's a lot of Jesuses in the world today that people are

believing in and believing on, but it's the wrong Jesus.

And you know, the Mormons are, are a great example of that,

right? It's a false gospel.

It's a false Jesus. You know, you, you go into

Mormonism and start reading through their religious

documents, their, their Pearl of great price, their Bible.

And what you find out is that, you know, Jesus and Satan were

brothers and, you know, they had a conflict in heaven and Satan

chose the wrong side and Jesus got the upper seat.

And you know, he's going to be a God someday with his own worlds.

And so can all of us. We can be God someday with our

own worlds, and we're the brothers of Jesus and all of

these other things. It's not the same Jesus that the

Bible is telling us about. It's Jesus.

And so when you talk to a Mormon, he's going to tell you

that he believes in Jesus. And, and many of them have the

greatest intentions and they think they're talking about the

same Jesus. But if they would actually read

their own Bible, they would find out that we're not talking about

the same Jesus at all. So you can believe on Jesus, but

you're believing on the wrong one.

And you're believing in the wrong things to take you to

heaven, right. You can't get to heaven in the

Mormon church unless you have a temple recommend.

How do you get a temple recommend?

Well, you have to be in good standing with the Mormon church

and you can go and you can get baptized for the dead people who

have been dead for 100 years. You can go in there and if you

have a list to prove that you know who this person is and

they're in your family and everything else, you can go get

baptized for them so that in the afterlife, they might hopefully

have a chance of getting to heaven at some point, right?

And and people will go in and get baptized in the Mormon

church in the temple 15 times for 15 different people who

didn't believe in the Mormon Jesus and who didn't believe in

the Mormon doctrine and died in their sin.

And now you can get baptized for them so they can have a chance

of getting out of hell and getting into heaven in the

afterlife. That's not in the Bible.

It's a different Jesus, right? So believe in him all you want,

but you're believing in the wrong things.

Your faith is misplaced, right? You can believe all you want to,

but if it's in the wrong thing, it doesn't do any good for you.

What does the Bible say Not what did some man make up not what

did not? What does this church say you

have to do not what does this man say you have to do?

What does the Bible say? And if it doesn't say it in the

Bible, then we should not be following it.

So that's what happens. You can believe in vain by

believing the wrong things. Now you can be sincere and be

sincerely wrong, right? I mean, you think, OK, let's,

let's just take the stock market for example, right?

This stock is good is the next big thing.

I'm putting all my money into it.

That's how much I believe in this stock, right?

And you put all your money into it and it tanks.

You believed it sincerely and you proved it because you put

all of your money into that, into that stock.

But just because you believed it doesn't make it true, right?

Just because you thought that that was going to happen and you

put all your faith in that stock, it's still tanked, right?

And the same thing is true. There's a lot of people out

there in religions in the world today who are very sincere and

who are trying to do everything they can to follow what that

religion says they have to do. There are very sincere Catholics

out there in the world today who are very religious people and

who won't miss a single Mass and who won't miss a single prayer

of the rosary at night, and who won't miss a single opportunity

to confess their sins and do everything right because they're

very, very, very sincere. They're going to find out when

they get to heaven and stand before God that that wasn't

God's way. That was some man's way.

Something that man made-up, they're going to find out when

they get there that even though they were very sincere, they

were sincerely wrong and their faith was misplaced because it

wasn't in the Jesus that the Bible tells us about.

So how do you believe in vain? You can believe the wrong things

#2 you can believe in vain by believing without repentance.

And we see that. In fact, let's just go to Luke

Luke 13 · chapter mention

chapter 13, Luke chapter 13, and verse #3 verse 2.

Luke 13 · chapter mention

Jesus answering, said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galileans

were sinners above all the Galileans, because they suffered

such things? I tell you, nay, no, because,

but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.

Let's go over to Acts chapter 17.

Acts 17 · chapter mention

And again we don't. I'm not trying to hammer a point

that we've already talked about because these are all the same

verses that we talked about when we went to when we went through

repentance. But Acts chapter 17 and verse

Acts 17 · chapter mention

#30 is one that we haven't looked at.

And the times of this ignorance God winked at.

In other words, God overlooked it, but now commandeth all men

everywhere to repent. And this was this was Paul

standing there and preaching to the Athenians, to those in

Athens, Greece, on Mars Hill. And they were very sincere.

They had they had monuments to all these gods.

In fact, that just in case they missed one, they had a monument

to the unknown God. And Paul said, who is that

unknown God? He preached to them Jesus.

And he said, listen, it's understandable because you don't

know the truth. But now that you know the truth,

God commands you to repent. The times of this ignorance you

didn't know. God winked that, but now

commandeth all men everywhere to repent, because he hath

appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in

righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained, whereof he

hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him

from the dead. And then they had a choice.

Are they going to accept it? Were they going to reject it?

Well. And when they heard of the

resurrection of the dead, some mocked and others said, we will

hear thee again of this matter. Paul departed from among them.

They had a choice after that. But very, very clearly, Paul

said you need to repent. Belief without repentance is not

salvation. Repentance means to surrender to

God. Many want to believe in Jesus

without surrendering their lives to Him, but it's impossible to

be saved without repentance. By the way, let's turn over to

James Shepherd too. I think this is one of the one

of the clearest examples that we have that it's not just belief.

I think this is a great argument for those, and there's a lot of

them out there nowadays that are saying that that repentance is

just a change from unbelief to belief.

That's not repentance. Repentance is surrendering to

God. Repentance is recognizing that I

am a Sinner and without Christ I am going to spend an eternity in

hell. James chapter 2 and verse #19

James 2 · chapter mention

Thou believethest that there is one God.

Thou doest well. The devils also believe and

tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man,

that faith without works is dead?

The devils know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

The devils know all of these things, and not just that they

know it, they believe it. I believe he said there's one

God, thou do as well. The devils also believe and they

tremble. They know that He exists, but

they don't submit to Him. And many sinners are doing the

exact same thing. They they acknowledge the

existence of Jesus Christ. They acknowledge his death, his

burial, his resurrection. They acknowledge those things,

but they don't acknowledge him as the Savior from their sin.

That's that's a lot of these people who are going and getting

baptized as their salvation experience.

I went to church today for the first time in 10 years and I got

baptized. You're recognizing Jesus as

somebody who died, buried, and was resurrected, but you are not

making Jesus Christ the Lord. You're not surrendering to Him

if there's no repentance. And how The third way that you

can believe in vain is by believing a false gospel or a

false Christ. Second Corinthians.

Let's turn over this one as the last one.

Second Corinthians Chapter 11, 2nd Corinthians Chapter 11 and

2 Corinthians 11 · chapter mention

verse #3 and four. And I kind of hit on this

already, but I would have you know that the head of every man

is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head

of the Christ is God. Every man praying or prophesying

had having his I'm sorry, that was like does not make sense.

Second Corinthians does not make sense with what I what we needed

to what we're talking about here.

Second Corinthians Chapter 11 verse 3 and 4.

2 Corinthians 11:3

But I fear lest by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve through

his subtlety, so your mind should be corrupted from the

simplicity that is in Christ. For if he that cometh preaches

to another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive

another spirit which you have not received, or another gospel

which you have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.

For I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chief of his

apostles. And he continues on there.

But basically what he's saying is, don't accept anybody.

And he says, if I or an Angel from heaven come preach in

another gospel, reject it, right.

If that's not, I mean, if that is not the majority of religion

in the world today. In fact, Mormonism very clearly

says this is another testament, it's another gospel.

I mean, if you don't need, if you need a stronger warning than

that against those that are coming and preaching another

gospel, I don't know how you can get any clearer than this.

I don't know what other rejection of Mormonism you need

other than something that says this.

If somebody comes preaching another gospel, don't, don't

accept it. It's not the truth.

And they say, oh, we got another gospel.

And everybody says, oh, another gospel, let's take that.

All right, why would you do that?

The Bible very clearly says don't, right?

And they're coming and they're preaching another Jesus.

And that's how that's how you know that there is another

Jesus, right? Because the Bible says it.

For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus whom we have not

preached, that means there are other Jesuses out there that are

being preached. If it's not the Jesus of the

Bible, then we need to reject it.

Many believe in a different gospel or a different Jesus than

that which is revealed in Scripture.

For example, they believe in a gospel of faith plus works or

Jesus plus sacraments or Jesus that is not almighty God in the

flesh. And there's, there's a million

other things that people believe that's not in the Bible.

And that's why I say you want to know the truth.

Is it in the Bible? If it's in the Bible, it's the

truth. If it's not in the Bible, it's

not the truth. I don't care who you are.

I don't care who you claim to be.

I don't care who you claim to talk to.

If it's not in the Bible, we have everything we need from

God's Word. There are no new revelations

today. Everything we need we've been

given already. And he said the things that you

find in this book, you better not add to it.

Better not take away from it, or you going to face the wrath of

God. I think I'll just stick with

what's here. We don't need anything else.

So the gospel important, obviously it's the foundational

element, repentance, faith, the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Without that, everything else, everything else is just building

on a foundation of sand and you can know all of it's going to

come crumbling down. You could be the best builder

there is. You can build a beautiful,

beautiful house. If it's built on sand, it's

going to collapse, right? And that's what we, that's what

most people are doing. They're building on sand because

they've never come to Christ in repentance and faith.

They've never made Jesus Christ the Savior that they need

because of their sin. And they put the sanctification

in front of the justification. And you do all of these things

that Christians do, but all of these things that Christians do

are built on sand because this is the foundation, repentance,

faith, the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That's the foundation and without that you can build, you

can put all these things together, but it's going to come

crashing down and it's going to be hollow.

It's going to be empty because it's not built on the foundation

of Jesus Christ. So we're going to continue,

we're going to continue talking about some more of these things

and, and, and really some of these, even the next one,

evidence of salvation, baptism after that, a lot of different

things, eternal security. Those are all things that come

after salvation, but until you until you know Christ as your

Savior, until you have that foundation, then it doesn't

matter what you build on top of it.

You need that foundation first, then you can build and then it

will be strong and then it's going to last.

All right, we'll do some questions from that next week.

And I know there's a lot of them, a lot of verses in there

as well, but a good study. Let's pray.

Father, again, we thank you so much for your goodness to us.

Thank you for the opportunity that we have to study through

these things. I pray that it's a help to us.

God, may you make us strong in understanding these things.

May you make us strong and being able to explain this to somebody

else from God's word. And God, if it's in the Bible,

may you help us to be strong on it.

If it's not in the Bible, may you help us to reject it.

We thank you again for all you do for us in Jesus name, Amen.