"The Resurrection" Mark 16:1-13

Good morning, Calvary Chapel. Good morning, everybody.

It's a beautiful resurrection day.

Morning. And I just want to say to

everybody, happy resurrection day.

Jesus is risen. He is risen indeed.

Amen. Amen.

What a blessed day to be here today.

You know, and I, but I just want to say that whoever keeps

raising this platform every week and making it harder for Clark

and I to get up on this, no one's doing that.

I would just getting older, I guess, getting more challenging.

Amen. Well, please turn in your Bibles

to the 5th, the 16th chapter of the book of Mark.

That's what we're going to be coming out of today.

And while we're doing that, I want to thank our sister Carrie

for the gracious welcome of everyone that's here.

New, those who are coming who are new, and of course, those of

you who come all the time. But I just want to extend also a

very warm welcome to those who are listening behind prison

walls this morning. We're not forgotten.

And we are praying for you. And we pray that today's service

would be a blessing to you. Thank you for joining us today.

So without getting into too many other things, let's just pray

and let's get into the Word of God.

Amen. Amen.

Father, we do thank you for this wonderful day, this blessed day

as a believer. Lord, this is one of the most

favorite on most favorite days of the year as we celebrate your

dominance over death in the grave.

Lord, we thank you that you are risen, that we serve a living

God. We don't serve an idol.

We don't serve a Pagan God. We don't serve many ungodly

deities, but we serve the true and living God.

And this morning, Lord, we celebrate your resurrection, We

celebrate your life. And we thank you, Lord, that you

loved us so much, that just as you live, as you said in your

word, Lord, that we will live also.

So Father, I pray that You would hide me behind the cross this

morning, that You would allow Your word to come forth and not

mine, that You would think with my mind and speak with my lips.

Stand in this old, weak body, Lord, and I pray that everything

that is done today will bring You glory.

We have worshipped, we have sang, and now we will worship

You by sitting under Your Word and not just sitting under it,

but obeying Your word. In Jesus holy name, we pray that

everyone say Amen, Amen. So today is the day of

resurrection and it is one of the most awesome days and not

just in the history of Christianity, but in the world

period. This is history.

This is an event that has taken place in the world period.

And when we're going to start at this this particular study,

we're going to look at Mark chapter 16.

Mark 16 · chapter mention

And as you can see, it begins with now when the Sabbath was

passed. But I want to bring you back to

chapter 50 at the end of chapter 15, where it ends with the

events following the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

And in the events following the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, we

see very clearly that the, the men, the Josephs of Arimathea

and, and, and Nicodemus actually took the body of Jesus and they

wrapped them in fine linen and they, they put them in a, a tomb

that was cut out of stone and they put them in a tune and they

sealed that, that tomb was sealed with, with a rock, a big

rock, a big stone. And from that point on you had

grief, you had sorrow. And what I want to do today is

to look at what happened very briefly.

I want to look at what happened between that Friday, which was

the day of his crucifixion, and the day of preparation for the

Sabbath, and that Sunday, which was the day of Jesus rising from

the dead. And that would be the Sabbath

day, the Saturday. We never talk too much about

Saturday. We talk about Good Friday and we

talk about the Cruces and we talk about the rest day of

resurrection, but we never talk too much about Saturday.

But if you can imagine with me, just for a couple minutes, what

was it that the disciples, what were the people who believed in

Jesus Christ? What were they going through at

that particular time? I mean, they, they, they have,

they have just seen that their, their savior, their hope was,

was, was crucified. Many people believe that that

Saturday was the darkest day in the history of mankind because

their Savior lay dead in the tomb.

It was a day of sorrow, a day of grief, a day of mourning, a day

of weeping. But it was also a day of fear

because they feared that those who were arrested and crucified,

their Lord was also looking for them as well.

So they hid, and they, and they and, and they, they, they

coward. And according to John 20 and 19,

it said that they were hiding in fear from the Jews, from their

own people. But what's amazing is that prior

to that, everything seemed to be going so well.

I mean, they were walking with their Lord.

They were watching Him do miracles.

They were listening to his teaching.

They could feel His love. They were communing with him,

dining with Him, going from town to town, just doing the work of

the Lord. Everything seemed to be going so

well. But then the unthinkable

happened. The unthinkable.

One of their own betrays the Messiah.

Jesus is arrested. Peter denies him three times.

Jesus is crucified and he dies in their hopes.

All their hopes, all the things that they imagined would happen

died with them in their hearts. They didn't recognize, They

didn't remember the promise that he gave them several times when

he said it was so, it has to be so and fulfilled that the Son of

Man would would die, He would be he would be crucified and he

would be buried, but he would raise again the third day.

That thought was nowhere in their hearts.

They were it was covered by the grief and the sorrow that they

were feeling those unthinkable things.

But this experience actually revealed evidence of their

disbelief and the weakness of their faith.

Even though he told them on three occasions that this would

happen, they were still caught off guard.

It's, it's, it's amazing how sometimes even though we can

know or anticipate that something may happen, when it

does happen, we can still be caught totally unprepared and

off guard. All of us have that experience

at one time or another. We've had a life changing

experience where something happened suddenly in like for

example, losing a loved one. Or maybe you have had the

experience of having a, a, a negative medical report from the

doctor test result that may have come up and and it caught you

off guard. Maybe you had the experience of

a financial crisis in your life. The COVID epidemic caught many

people off guard and unprepared. How about this war and the

crisis that the country is going through right now?

And for a lot of people, they are dealing with grief and and

they're dealing with sorrow as a result of these things.

But thank God for his scriptures, his scriptures that

we can go to for comfort. And for example, scriptures like

Psalm 46 that says God is our refuge and strength as a very

present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear even

though the earth be removed and the mountains be carried into

the midst of the sea, and though the waters may roar, sometimes

in our life we feel like the waters are all roaring and the

waves are raging. But he says, you don't have to

worry about that because God is our refuge and He is our

strength. Psalm 33 tells us that our soul

waits. Our soul waits for the Lord.

He is our help in our shield. Sometimes we need to remember

that, you know, we want to run to other people when these

things happen sometimes, but it's God who is our refuge.

He is our our our our shield. He is our help for our hearts

shall not shall rejoice in him because we have trusted in his

holy name. So as we move into verse one and

we look at what happened, I'm going to read down to verse 5

and then we'll come back. But he says here and Mark

Mark 16:1

chapter 16 verse 1, he says now when the Sabbath was passed, so

Saturday is over with Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of

James Salome brought spices that they might come to anoint him

very early in the morning on the first day of the week.

They came to the tomb when the sun had risen.

So that lets us know that they had no intention or no idea that

they would find the tomb empty. They came prepared to anoint

him. They came prepared to finish

with Joseph and Nicodemus had started to anoint them with

these spices to try to delay the decay of the body and to take

care of that odor that happens with the the decaying body, the

odor of death. They didn't come there thinking

that there would be any kind of of of of empty tomb, but they

were looking to see a body. They never considered that he

would be risen. They expect, they never expected

the miracle of resurrection, which really makes that

conspiracy theory which they had tried to conjure up, the

enemies, the the Jews. The Jews tried to conjure up

this conspiracy theory that said that Jesus's followers stole the

body. That sounds even more ridiculous

when you think about the fact that they didn't come prepared

to see a body. They can't prepare to see a

body. They didn't come prepared to see

an empty tomb. They would have never done all

that if they had plans to steal Jesus's body and it came early

in the morning on a Sunday morning could be when the lights

when the sun came up so that they can see inside the tomb.

They knew they needed to have some light because it would be

so dark. But when they got there, they

saw that the tomb was empty and the stone was rolled away.

Look at what it says here in verse 3.

It says and they said among themselves as they were coming,

This is interesting. Who will roll away the stone

from the door of the tomb for us?

But when they looked up, they saw that the stone had already

been rolled away for it was very large.

So they were looking and they were considering as they're

walking along the way. We have our spices and we have

these things that we need to try to minister to our Lord, to our

savior. But we got a problem here.

There's a big stone. This stone is about 1 to 2 tons

and, and we need some help. You know, men can't even move

this thing and it's just three of us ladies, and how are we

going to move this stone? But God had already taken care

of that provision because he had an Angel come down and, and

through the power of God, that stone was rolled away.

But what's interesting about this is that the men were

cowering. They were cowering somewhere.

They were hiding, you know, from the, from the Jews and the

enemies of Jesus Christ. They were all hiding somewhere.

But these women who the only thing they had on their minds

was ministering to their Lord. They didn't care about what the

threat would be if we went out into the public.

They didn't care if they, if they thought that everybody knew

that they were with Jesus. They just wanted to minister to

their Lord and they were fearless about it.

So what the men worried about, they were concerned about who's

going to know that we are followers of Jesus and find out

where we are. And the women, the only thing

they worried about was how we're going to move the stone to

minister to our Lord. So the next verse says in verse

5 says in and entering the tomb. I'm going to come back to that

stone a little later, but entering that tomb, they saw a

young man clothed in in a white robe sitting on the right side

and they were alarmed. Verse 6 says, but he said to

them, do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth who

was crucified. In other words, he had to make

it clear he is dead. He did die.

No one survives crucifixion. He is dead.

But then the next verse is the thing that we are all the reason

why we're all here and the reason why we come every Sunday,

the reason why we believe what we believe, and we're so adamant

about sharing this truth. He is risen.

He is risen. He is not here.

He's not here. See the place where they laid

him, But go and tell his disciples and Peter that he is

going before you into Galilee. There you will see him as he

said, he's risen, He's risen. The, the, the, the resurrection

has happened. Now there was no one there that

actually witnessed him coming out of the tomb, except for the

angels. But the proof of his

resurrection is massive. It's massive.

And that's what we're going to talk a lot about today is going

to be that the resurrection, the proof of it, what it means, it

was massive. And he says, go tell his

disciples evangelism. Go tell somebody what you know,

go tell the truth. Go tell what you what you just

witnessed here. Go tell them that's evangelism.

And also tell Peter I love that because that tells me that

regardless of my shortcomings, regardless of how many times I

may come short of His glory, He doesn't forget me.

He doesn't forget you. No matter what we do in this

life, if our hearts are to seek Him, if we believe in Him, He

won't forget us. He knew that Peter was

heartbroken. He Peter had just denied him

three times. He probably didn't even feel

like he was a part of the group anymore.

But yet Jesus made it a point to tell the women, When you go tell

the rest of them that I've resurrected, that I'm no longer

here, go tell Jesus. I mean, go tell Peter as well.

Tell Peter. Let him know that I've forgiven

him. Let him know that my grace is

sufficient. Let them know that I have mercy.

And that is such a good, that's such a good, a good message for

me. It's such a good, such a good

word for me and for you. You don't have to be perfect.

We can't be perfect, but we just need to know.

As he said, he'll remember you. Go tell Peter too.

Don't leave him out. Don't leave him out.

So she goes back. These women go back, as you can

see in verse A So they went out quickly and they fled from the

tomb. And they, and they, they, they,

they, they tremble because they, they were in fear, fear of the

fact that what they don't know what the Lord is.

They, they, they, he was told that he was, he was risen, but

we don't know where he is. But they were also amazed.

They were astonished. They had great joy and they said

nothing to no one, for they were afraid.

Now in most manuscripts, this is where the 16th chapter of Mark

ends. You know, some of your Bibles

may not even have the rest of the book of Mark from verses 9

to 20. And the ones of them ones that

do some of your verses, some of your, your books may have

parentheses or braces at the end that starts with the verse 9 and

goes through verse 20 of the book of Mark.

But this is accepted. So we go through and we read the

rest of it. And he says, now from verses 9

to 13, we see something interesting.

You would think, you would think that if the word, the message

was coming through that he's resurrected, that he's not in

the grave. You would think that that would

be met with jubilation. It would be met with a bunch of

joy. It would be meant by people

just, oh, praising and worshipping and being thankful

and belief. But it wasn't.

In fact, verses 9 through 13 tells us that it was actually

met with unbelief. And this isn't from the people,

just the people of the town we're talking about, from his

disciples. It was met with unbelief.

Look at what it says now. When he arose early on the first

day of the week, verse 9, he appeared first to Mary

Magdalene, out of whom he had cast 7 demons.

She went and told those who were had been with him.

And as they mourned and weeped, so they were still weeping, and

they were still mourning as they wanted to meet.

And when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her,

they did not believe. Let's drop down to verse 12 and

13. After that he appeared in

another form to two or three to to two of them as they walked on

the way into the country. That was when he talked about

the, the road, the disciples that he met on the road to

Emmaus. And they went and told it to the

rest. After they saw Jesus, after they

commune with Jesus that night and they realized that it was

Him, they went back and told the rest.

But look at what it says. But they did not believe them.

So it was met. The news of Jesus rising was met

with unbelief. And even to today, there is

still unbelief about the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Still today we're dealing with that.

I looked at a study that was done by Lifeway Research and it

said that 66% of people who profess to be Christians, only

66% actually believe the literal bodily resurrection of Jesus

Christ. Only 66%.

What was wrong with the rest of y'all?

But then it says that 20% don't believe at all and then 14% are

not sure. What's really sad about this is

that that 20 and 14% include. Men who are standing in the

pulpit and preaching the gospel, how can you preach the gospel

when you don't believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ?

Can't happen. It can't happen.

The resurrection is a non negotiable part of the gospel

message. It's non negotiable.

To not believe in the message of the resurrection is to not

believe the gospel at all. That's why at baptism, Pastor

Clark does an excellent job of giving a brief devotional before

anybody gets in the water. He does a brief devotional on

the gospel of Jesus Christ and make sure that everybody

believes it before they step into the water.

Because baptism does not save you.

It's what you believe before you get in that water that saves

you. So he gives that brief he, he

gives that brief devotion. And before they go down into the

water or before they're dipped, they have to agree and they

believe or profess the gospel that Jesus is the Son of God,

God himself in the flesh, that Jesus did die for our sins, that

Jesus was buried and that he arose on the third day.

That is the core message in the central belief of the Christian

faith. Paul says in the in the in the

book of Romans, he says that it's a part of our confession of

faith for salvation. In Romans 10 and 9, he says if

you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your

heart that God has raised him from the dead, that's

resurrection. You shall be saved.

So it's not up for grabs that we talk about resurrection.

I believe that Jesus is the Son of God.

I believe that he died, but I don't know about the

resurrection thing. If you either you believe at all

or you don't believe any of it, it's the gospel.

It's the gospel. So at this point, I'm going to

take your attention to the defense of the resurrection

because today I want each and every one of us.

Just like Jesus made sure that each and every one of his

disciples of his apostles, he made sure that they were sure,

that they were reassured and that without a shadow of a

doubt, they knew that what they would go out and profess, what

they would go out and preach. They did it with the true

understanding and that they believed it with all of their

heart. And that's why he appeared to

them all. They had eyewitness accounts of

their Savior being risen. So today we're going to talk

about the defense of the death of the resurrection.

So with the defense of the resurrection, we have to go back

to the 15th chapter of the book of First Corinthians, 15th

chapter, the book of First Corinthians.

I just want to bring out a few things concerning that.

First of all, from verses one through 8, when we look at that,

we look at first at verses one through 4 which presents the

gospel and it says here, moreover, brethren, starting at

verse verse one and chapter 15, it says, moreover, brethren, I

declare to you the gospel. This is the gospel which I

preached to you, what you also received and in which you stand.

This is important. The gospel message that he

preached was the message in which they stand.

It's the message in which we stand as Christians, as

believers in Jesus Christ, by which also you are saved.

He wouldn't put that in there if it didn't mean something by

which you are saved. This is the gospel.

You can't be saved by another gospel.

You can't be saved by half gospel.

You got to believe in this gospel, this gospel, unless you

have believed in vain. So here's the gospel message.

There's three points to it. Some people say that this is a

A3 legged stool. When I first heard that, I said,

wait a minute, shouldn't it still have 4 legs?

But it can stand on 3A stool, Can't stand on three, cannot

stand on two though not a stool. So he says this, that Christ

died for our sins. According to the Scriptures,

Christ died for our sins. That's important, the death, to

have that, to have the a record of that death.

That's the sacrifice that paid our sin debt.

That's why the death is important.

Without the shedding of blood, there can be no forgiveness of

sins. And only Jesus Christ could have

done it because he was the only one that was without sin.

He was the Lamb. He was the Lamb without spot or

blemish, so only he could have done that.

Because we're not redeemed with corruptible things like silver

and gold. I couldn't come up with enough

money to redeem us and save us or pay for our sin debt.

Couldn't pay for it with enough money.

But it was with the precious blood of Christ as a lamb with

our blemishes spot, according to Peter.

And Peter also understood that it was Jesus who bore our sins

and his own body on the tree, that we having died to sins,

might live to righteousness, by whose stripes we are healed from

that sinful condition. By his stripes we're healed.

His death was prophesied in the Old Testament as well.

If you look at Isaiah 5053 and 80 says he was cut off from the

land of the living for the transgressions of my people, He

was stricken. So yes, there is the proof that

he did die and it was prophesied that he would die.

So that's part of the gospel. The Messiah will come and he

would die for our sins. That's part of the gospel.

And then there's a second part. He was buried.

Now He was placed in a tomb that was secured.

And when he was buried, he was placed in the tomb that was

secured three ways, three ways. The first way he was secured,

they put a they put a guard, they put a door, a rock, a big

stone in the mouth of the tomb where he was.

And then in addition to that, they put a guard to watch over

it. And as if that wasn't enough,

they sealed it. They put a seal on it over in

Matthew chapter 2766 says that they went and made the tomb

secure, sealing it, sealing it with a stone and setting a

guard. So it was sealed and that's

sealed with that seal meant was that it was the authority and

the ownership of the Roman government.

And they knew that if they sealed that tomb that nobody

would tamper with it because to tamper with something that was

sealed by the Roman government meant death.

So that was one of the ways that they tried to secure that tomb

to make sure that nobody, nobody would interfere with it.

And they didn't, but they wouldn't didn't bank on the

power of God. They didn't bank on the power of

God. And you know what, Thank God we

are sealed. The Bible says that when we

believe, at the moment that we believe, we are sealed with the

Holy Spirit of promise. We are sealed.

Each and every one of us who believe are sealed and we are

under the authority and we are the ownership of Jesus Christ.

We serve Him and we're sealed by him.

Thank you, Lord, thank you, Lord.

But then the third part, the third leg of this, of this three

leg of stool is that he rose again the third day.

And that's what we're here celebrating today.

In fact, we celebrate this every Sunday, every time we get

together. It is a celebration of the

resurrection of Jesus Christ. Because without that

resurrection, there'll be no need to come together.

There'll be no need to get up and come to church.

But we do have a reason to come because we raise, we, we, we

serve the risen and living God. Amen.

Amen. So that third one is the

resurrection. OK?

Christ is not just our suffering Savior.

He's our living Lord. He is not just your suffering

Savior. It wouldn't mean anything if he

just went to and got and had to suffer, or if he went to the

cross and just died and that was it.

There was a period left or that that wouldn't mean anything but

the resurrection that is what gives our that's our hope.

That's where our faith lies in the resurrection of Jesus

Christ. He is our he's not just our

suffering Savior. He's our living Lord Proof.

Now there's a couple of things that his resurrection proves

first of all proves of his power over death and the grave.

It proves that Jesus is the Messiah, that he is divine, and

that he is the Son of the living God.

And most important, not only that, but it proves that God the

Father accepted his sacrifice when he came out of that grave.

When God raised him from the dead, it meant that he accepted

Jesus Christ as our sacrifice. And because he accepted that

sacrifice, we have forgiveness of sins.

The sin dead is paid 100% paid. Yeah.

He was delivered because of our offenses and was raised because

of our justification. We redeemed through the blood of

Jesus Christ and that was accepted by the Father.

So Paul defends this truth of the gospel, the fact that he

died, the fact that he was buried and the fact that he and

the fact that he rose on the third day.

He defends the resurrection. He defends it based on this, the

authority and the authority has two points.

The authority of the Scriptures. Throughout the Old Testament

Scriptures it prophesied that the Messiah would die, but that

he would be raised again. Again Isaiah 53 and 10 says,

When you make his soul and offering for sin his death, he

shall see his seed. That means he's going to rise

again, and he shall pro, and we shall He shall prolong his days,

and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

That was written 700 to 750 years before he ever went to the

cross. And then Psalm 616 and 10, he

says you will not leave my soul and she O nor will you allow the

Holy one to see corruption. And then even Job, even Job

talked about Jesus resurrecting. He says, for I know that my

Redeemer lives and he shall stand at last on the earth.

So it's well prophesied that they that he would live.

So the so through these through the fulfillment of these Old

Testament prophecies of his death and his resurrection, he

is declared to be the Son of God.

He's declared and what Paul said over in Romans, it just really

strikes me because Paul says over in Romans chapter 1 and

Romans 1 · chapter mention

verse three and four, he says concerning his Son Jesus Christ

our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the

flesh and declared to be the Son of God with power according to

the Spirit of holiness. But how did he declare to be the

Son of God according to power? How did he declare to be the

Messiah? How did he declare to do this?

And we look at the last part of that verse.

It says by the resurrection from the dead.

That's how he declared it. So we have proof.

The second authority is the authority of eyewitnesses.

There the resurrection of Jesus Christ is most attested, is the

most attested event in ancient history.

It is the most attested event in ancient history.

What do I mean by the word attested?

It means that it is the most witnessed and confirmed event

and proof that something is true.

When you attest something, you you're basically witnessing that

it is true. That's right, young lady, help

me teach this. He's witnessing that something

is true. So Jesus's resurrection was

witnessed by all the apostles, Not just look at you.

Do the math in your own minds as we go through this.

He was witnessed by all the apostles, and then he was

witnessed, and then He was witnessed by over 500 brethren

at once. Now we're talking about people

seeing the Messiah after He rose, not just hearing about

Him. They saw Him.

They saw Him after He arose from the grave.

And that strengthened their faith and they became bold

witnesses for Christ, even unto death.

That's why you have so many people who didn't, you know, who

didn't shrink in the face a martyr ship in the face of

death. They would get on their knees

and they would start singing hymns and be prepared to die for

their Lord because they knew that what they were proclaiming

was true. They knew it was true.

And last of all, he was seen and witnessed by Paul.

At the last time Paul saw Jesus, he spent time with Jesus and

Jesus taught him the gospel. And that was before he went to

be with the other apostles. So he saw him.

Paul said it was like 1 being born out of time.

So just as a point of reference here, you have 500 / 500

witnesses, and then you have the 12 apostles.

OK. Then you have Jesus's brother

who saw him, and then you have Paul.

That's a lot of people. That's over 500 people who saw

Jesus alive after the resurrection.

Now, the Bible says only two or three in the mouth of two or

three witnesses. Every word is established.

Well, I would think 500 is a lot more than two or three.

And in any court of law, if I was if, if I was defending a

case, OK. If I was defending my brother

Dan here, Dan was accused of robbing the bank down the

street, got a couple $1,000,000 out of there and they accused

him of it. But the first thing they would

do is say, well, Dan, say, well, wait a minute.

I, I wasn't there. I wasn't there.

Well, where were you, Dan? I was at Starbucks.

That would have been my first guess for Dan.

If a police officer ever come to me and say, do you see, have you

seen Dan? Did you check Starbucks?

But he would say, OK, I was at, he was at Starbucks.

Now, if two or three people were to say that, yeah, we saw him at

Starbucks, that would be OK, That would be great for the

court of law. But he has 500 people, that's

it. They saw him at Starbucks, 500

witnesses. So even with that, they still

question the resurrection of Jesus Christ even with that.

So you know, that's nothing but an evil agenda.

And I say this to you because I want us, just like Jesus Christ

wants us to be affirmed in our faith.

That when we go out and proclaim the word of God, regardless of

who we proclaim it to, if we proclaim it to a relative, to a

friend, and we proclaim it to an enemy and we proclaim it to a

neighbor, to a Co worker, no matter who we proclaim it to, we

need to be affirmed that he is who he said he was.

He is Jesus, He's the bread of heaven.

He's God in the flesh. We have to be affirmed to that.

So he goes on and we see that this resurrection is is

falsifiable. What do you mean he's

falsifiable? Well, because anybody could have

went to any of those people and asked them privately.

Did you see him? And anyone could have said no, I

didn't see him, not really. Or all they had to do was

produce a body. If you say he didn't rise from

the dead, OK, produce a body. Where's his body?

It's been almost 2000 years and they haven't come up with a body

yet. I don't think they're going to,

personally. My money is on that.

He's not going to. I feel secure in proclaiming

Jesus Christ as being my Lord and Savior, very secure.

Nothing's going to die. Make me doubt him.

My grandmother used to say, you can't make me doubt him because

I know too much about him. Verse 20 over in verse 20 and

the book of First Corinthians, Paul makes this assertion.

He says, but now Christ is risen from the dead.

Why did he say that? He said that because there were

so many who would doubt that he had risen.

But but Paul understood that if there was no resurrection,

there'd be no Christianity and no salvation.

If there's no resurrection, those who are dead or just

perished, we would have no hope for the future of eternal life.

If He did not rise out of the grave, then we are still all in

our sins with no hope of being redeemed or being forgiven.

But Paul says, but now Christ is risen from the dead and has

become the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

Glory to God because when he says first fruits, then that

means that means it's going to be others to follow.

You can't be the first unless you got somebody coming after

you. And we are those who are coming

after him. Amen.

So with that said, that is the defense for the resurrection.

Now going back to as we come in for a landing pretty soon here

going back to Mark 16, I just want to take another look at

that stone. That stone back in verses 3

through 6 when he talked about the stone that was in the tomb

there verse verse 3. He says and they and they and

they sit among themselves, who will roll away the stone from

the door of the tomb for us. I just want to take a quick look

at that stone. As we said, that stone probably

weighed between 1 1/2 to 2 tons. But there's something that that

stone symbolizes for us. The stone symbolizes the

finality of death. That stone symbolized It was

used as a door to shut death in, just as sin as a door that shuts

us into the prison of death, keeps us in darkness.

But faith in Christ removed that sin and it revives us and brings

us into everlasting life. Just as those ladies were were

able to go in and see what was in the tomb, death was no longer

in that tomb. It was gone.

But Jesus didn't have to have the, the, the stone removed in

order for him to get out. That wasn't why the stone was

removed. It wasn't removed so Jesus can

get out. He could have walked through it.

He could have transported himself.

He rose with a spiritual body. At that point he could have done

a lot of things, a lot of things as he did with the disciples.

He was walking through doors. He was appearing in different

places, so he didn't need anybody to move the door, but

the door wasn't moved for him to come out.

The door was moved for those ladies to be able to see in to

justify their proclamation of his resurrection.

And even when we go, I asked the last time we talked about the

resurrection. I asked because Clark is the

only one that I know to hear it has actually been to Israel on

more than one occasion. And I'm sure he stopped by that

tomb and he affirmed that when he stopped and looked in, Jesus

wasn't there. And that's enough for me.

I don't have to fly to Israel to go to see if he's in the tomb.

I know he's not there based on 501 witnesses now, right?

Amen. Amen.

So this stone that was there to shut in death is no longer

there. And I love what Matthew 28 and

two says. He said the Angel rolled back to

stone and sat on it. He sat on that stone, that thing

that was supposed to be so secure to lead, to have death

shut in, that thing that was going to be so secure to have

darkness be sat in and overwhelming.

He sat on it to show that God's victory over, his victory over

and dominance over death in the grave.

He is victorious over death in the grave.

Death couldn't keep him and the grave can't hold him.

Oh, Death, where's your, where's your thing?

Where's your sting? Death doesn't have sting

anymore. We don't have to be afraid of

death anymore because we know we will rise.

So we don't have to be afraid. Death doesn't have that sting

anymore. Oh grave, where is your victory?

The grave can't keep anybody. It won't keep us because it

didn't keep him. Jesus says you will live because

I live. And if I live, you will live our

soul. So the door to the prison of

death was removed. Charles Spurgeon said this.

He said death's ancient prison house is missing a door.

Glory to God. So today we celebrate and we

recognize that resurrected new life in Jesus Christ.

We recognize his victory over death and the grave.

His resurrection is our hope of eternal life.

He is the first born from the dead, meaning that there will be

others who will follow. But lastly, in the praise and

worship team can come forth now please.

But lastly, that stone represents something else.

That stone represents the obstacle that was in the way of

those women getting to Jesus. It was an obstacle to keep these

women from being able to see Jesus, from being able to

minister to Jesus. It would have been an obstacle

to keep them from Jesus, and it had to be removed.

But they couldn't remove it themselves.

It had to be removed by the power of God.

Many of us have obstacles. We have stones in our lives that

stop us and keeps us from getting closer to Jesus Christ.

Many of us do. We have obstacles that that,

that, that keep us from believing on Jesus Christ or

keeps us from giving ourselves totally to Jesus Christ.

That stops us from giving him all.

Or I'll give him this much, but I can't give him everything from

totally surrendering to Jesus Christ.

There are stones, there are obstacles that stops us from

doing that. What is yours?

What is your obstacle? If you can take a moment, just

think about that. What is the obstacle that's

really stopping you from going deeper in the Lord or stopping

you from serving Him the way that you know that He's worthy

to be served? Or if you're an unbeliever, what

is the obstacle that's stopping you from believing?

What's the stone that's in your way that's stopping you from

believing? What is stopping us from being

more like Jesus Christ? You can put anything in there.

I would follow Jesus closer if wasn't there or I would get I

would give my life today to Jesus if wasn't there.

What's the stone? I would read my Bible more if

wasn't there. I would come and assemble with

the believers more if wasn't there.

What's the stone in your life? We all have to answer that

question for ourselves, we all do.

But one thing we know for sure is that the same stone, the same

God that raised Jesus from the dead, the same God that rolled

the stone away from those women to be able to go in and see the

tomb. The same is the same one who was

able to roll the stone way out of my life and he's able to roll

the stone way out of your life. You just have to determine what

that stone is and give it to the Lord.

Bible says if we submit ourselves to God and resist the

devil, he will flee from us. What's your stone?

So as we go into our communion, Lord's Table, which for some

reason for me today has a little bit more meaning, and it should

have meaning every Sunday. So I even repent for that

because this should have meaning every Sunday.

Because every Sunday that we come and we congregate as a body

of believers, we are celebrating His resurrection because we

wouldn't have to come if He didn't resurrect.

So let's pray. Father, there are so many things

in our lives, Lord, that sometimes keep us from getting

closer to You. And one of those things is

unbelief and doubt. Father, we just talked about how

the resurrection was doubted and and was even not believed by

those who followed you the closest.

So what about us? It wasn't until they saw you,

Lord, that they believe truly and was ready to give their

lives for the cause, give their lives to proclaim you as the

Messiah, the resurrected Lord. But you told Thomas, you said,

Thomas, you believe because you see me.

But blessed are those who believe and not see.

So, Father, we believe even though we don't see, but we see

your effects in our lives. We see your power working

through the Holy Spirit in our lives.

We see, Lord, how you brought us out of darkness and into your

marvelous light. We see how you bless us with

good things, Lord, and how You keep no good things from those

who fear you. We see how you translated us

from the Kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of your dear Son.

We see the effects of your power, the effects of Your

resurrected life. We see that You are still the

advocate for us in heaven. We see that You still work

intercessory for us even here. So Father, we thank you that you

are no longer in that tomb, but you raised, You are risen.

And because of that, we have a living faith because we serve a

living God. We're the only ones who can

boast that Confucius is still in the grave, Muhammad is still in

the grave, Joseph Smith is still in the grave.

But you, you are the living Savior.

You're the living Lord. You arose.

So on a night in which Jesus was betrayed, he took the bread.

And after he broke it, he said, take and eat.

This is my body which is broken for you.

Eat this in remembrance of me. In the same manner he also took

the cup, and after supper he said, This cup is a new covenant

in my blood, which was shed for the sins of many.

Lord, when you went to that cross, when you allowed your

body to be beaten, when you allowed your blood to be shed by

mere men whom you yourself have created, Lord, you did it

thinking about us. You did it because you loved us.

You did it not for your sins, but for ours.

So this is the New covenant in your blood.

Drink this as often as you drink it, drinking in remembrance of

me. For as often as you eat this

bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death until he

comes again. Amen.

I would just ask that if anyone would like to come up to the

altar and just do business with the Lord, to just share what

that stone is that keeps you from being closer to Him.

Whatever that stone is, that prevents you from being able to

see Him more clearly and to serve Him, walk with Him more

dearly. The altar is open.