Son Rise before Sunrise

Welcome to the Reem Sound Church of God podcast.

Wherever you're listening from, we hope you are blessed by

today's message. Matthew chapter 28 and you might

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

have expected that a passage like this would be the passage

of today from one of the gospels.

This is one of the tremendous stories of the resurrection of

Jesus Christ in Matthew 28. It says in verse one.

Now after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to

dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to the tomb.

And behold, there was a great earthquake.

For an Angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came

and rollback the stone from the door, and sat on it.

His countenance was like lightning, and his clothing as

white as snow. And the guards shook for fear of

him, and became like dead men. But the Angel answered and said

to the women, Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus,

who was crucified. He is not here.

He is not here, for he is risen as he said.

Come and see the place where the Lord lay.

I want to speak to you this morning on this thought.

The sunrise that took place before sunrise.

It was a sunrise before sunrise. Let's pray.

Father, I thank you for everything God in this service

today. God, the worship just ushered us

into your presence, since you're here in a great and mighty way.

And Lord, we can never do justice to this story, no matter

how many times we try to tell it, sing about it, teach it,

whatever it is. The greatest story, Lord, in the

whole history of mankind. No story even comes close.

But give us an anointing Lord to be able here today, God, to at

least shine a bit of light that maybe hasn't been seen before on

this amazing account of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus

Christ. I pray this for the glory of God

in Jesus name, Amen. You may be seated.

So there was a day and I want to talk about that day when there

were two sunrises on the same day, 2 sunrises.

The first one is spelled Capital SON Son.

The son of God rise because he rose even before the SUN

sunrise. So there was a Day in History

that there were two sunrises. Sunrise here today in Stevens,

PA took place at 6:43 AM this morning.

I was awake and up for it. I wasn't watching the sunrise.

I'm praying and studying and trying to get ready for coming

here and ministering the word. Sunset will be at 7:33 PM today.

Now sometimes people say, and I've said it and probably most

of you have said it, the sun is not shining today.

But that is not true. The sun is always shining.

I said. The sun is always shining

whether we see it or not. The sun always shines.

The sun, as you know what I'm talking, SUN is for us, it is

actually the star that's at the center of our solar system.

And in fact it's the only star in our solar system.

Anything you're looking at at night and you see all those

stars, they are light years away from you.

But the Sun is 93,000,000 miles away and perfectly set in the

right place so that all of the planets, the asteroids, the

comets, they all are in orbit around it.

And so the Sun actually really provides tremendous things not

only to us but to our entire solar system.

And some, but sometimes we will say, well, the Sun is not

shining today. And there are reasons where it

appears, appears why it appears not to be shining.

One is nighttime. Once the sunsets today, it will

start getting dark. And that's because of the

Earth's rotation. And you know that there's a side

of the Earth that is facing the sun and when the rotation takes

place, that there's a side that goes away from the sun, and

that's called night or nighttime.

There's other reasons why there's something called polar

night. And there are places in the

Arctic Circle like Utica, Victoria, Alaska, where they can

go for weeks and never have a sunrise.

It'll come almost up, perhaps to the horizon.

If you've been to Alaska, you know this and it won't even come

up. The sun won't rise, but it's

still there and it's still shining.

Another thing, of course, is the solar eclipse and that's when

the moon passes between the Earth and the sun.

And for a little while at least, it blocks the sun because of the

proximity, the distance. It's the moon is not the sun, of

course. And we know the moon is in a

different place, but it's, it causes us not to be able to see

the sun, but the sun is still shining.

And then we know that sometimes just plain old cloud cover that

we see on often, we've seen a lot of it over this past winter

when there's cloud cover and we just can't see it.

But the sun is always shining. Now, if you have any concerns

about the sun, you might ought to because scientists tell us

that the sun will burn itself out in about 5 billion years.

You talk about climate change. 5 billion years from now,

scientists tell us that the sun will burn out, it'll use up all

this fuel and it'll be gone. I believe God has a different

plan. And I I do believe the sun is

going to be gone because the Bible tells us that.

But right now, I don't think you need to worry too much about

whether the sun is shining. But I can also tell you that the

Son of God is much like the SUN because he is always shining.

The Son of God is never in darkness.

The Son of God is never at a place where he is not visible if

we want to see him, because he is the Son of God and he's

always shining. In fact, Malachi 42 tells us,

but to you who fear my name, the Son of righteousness will arise

with healing in his wings. Aren't you thankful for the Son

of righteousness today that rises with healing in his wing?

And whether you see Him or not, whether you feel him or not, the

sun is always shining. The sun is always bright.

It's never dim and never dull. The Bible says in Him was light.

John 14 says in Him was life, and the life was the light of

men. And the light shines where in

the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

That means that the darkness could not extinguish it.

The light of Jesus was so bright that no matter how great the

darkness, no matter how black the darkness, it could never

extinguish the light of Jesus Christ.

And in this Dark World in which we live, I'm happy to tell you

that that light is shining as bright as it ever did, because

Christ is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

The sun is shining. Now, that doesn't mean that

there aren't those who want to extinguish that light.

In fact, from the very start, this son of righteousness, when

he came into the world, this one who was the light and the life

of men when he came even as an infant and even as a toddler, we

know that King Herod wanted to kill him before he even got

started. We know in the ministry of Jesus

numbers of times they tried to kill him after preaching in

Nazareth and Luke 4 the crowd tried to throw him off of a

Cliff. According to Mark 3 Pharisees

sought counsel together how they might destroy him.

In Matthew 12 it says the council got together and met and

wanted to destroy him. In John chapter 5 we are told

John 5 · chapter mention

that the Jews persecuted Jesus and sought to sought to slay him

because he said that God was his father.

Because he said God was his Father making him the Son of

God. They said we want to kill him in

John chapter after 7 the Bible says he could no longer walk in

Judea because when he did people wanted to kill him.

So all of Jesus earthly life, somebody was after him.

Somebody wanted to put that life out and that light out.

They wanted to kill. Believe it or not, the giver of

life that makes no sense at all. The one who gave everyone life,

they're wanting to extinguish him.

But I want you to think about that because even after the

resurrection, when the sunrise took place, before the sunrise,

even after that, the chief priests and elders wanted to

conceal the fact that he had been raised from the dead.

They didn't want anybody to know that.

And so they came up with a scheme.

And the scheme was to have fake grave robbers.

Fake grave robbers. You heard of fake news?

It was fake grave robbers, right?

Matthew 2811 says. Now while they were going,

behold, some of the guard came into the city and reported to

the chief priests all the things that had happened.

And when they had assembled with the elders and consulted

together, it says they gave a large sum of money to the

soldier, saying, tell them his disciples came at night and

stole him away while we slept. And if this comes through the

governor's ears, we will appease him and make you secure.

So they took the money and did as they were instructed.

And this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until

this day. So we see a picture here of a

scheme that says, let's pretend, let's make up a story that he

isn't really resurrected and raised from the dead.

We couldn't kill him all his life.

But then when he did offer his life and was crucified, he would

have to come back to life. And now he's living again.

And we don't want anybody to know that.

So you want to tell those people that are asking you that His

disciples came during the night and stole him away?

Grave robbers. How many of you know who Charlie

Chaplin was? Charlie Chaplin.

Now you're dating yourself. Charlie Chaplin was a * in

silent movies. You've possibly seen reels or

something of him. Charlie Chaplin was back when

there was there was no voice. It was he was a star in those

movies. Well, in 1978 his body was

stolen by a grave robber. He died and was buried in

Corsair Survey, Switzerland. And about two months after his

death, two men conspired together and said we're going to

steal his body. And so they went and they dug up

his body, casket, everything, and took it away.

And so when people came out to visit the grave, it was open and

he was gone. And those same two men tried to

extort 600,000 Swiss francs as ransom from his widow.

So they said we've got your dead husband and for 600,000 German

francs we'll give him back. Well, these two men were caught

and they did were sentenced. They were found guilty and were

sentenced. But the the story ends to that.

To prevent future thefts, his body was reburied under a layer

of reinforced concrete. In other words, we're not going

to let him be stolen again. You imagine somebody stealing a

body and then trying to extort money out of a widow because

you've got the body of a, of a dead person.

You've got that body, that corpse.

And so when they got it back, they said, no, what?

This is not going to happen anymore.

And so they buried it under reinforced concrete, come to

think of it. And there's a story in our news

in the last few months of a man in Lancaster County who's been

accused of grave robbing. It happened at Mount Moriah

Cemetery in Philadelphia, and he is accused of stealing 100 or

more skeletons. Body parts were sold on the

Internet. They found Crips and mausoleums

opened and bodies gone, some from long ago.

And that man is waiting trial, as I understand it right now,

and has been charged with I think over 100 different crimes.

Well, this story is different because the tomb was empty, not

because of grave robbers, but because of the resurrection.

I said not because somebody stole his body, not because

somebody wanted to get his body and sell it, but he was gone.

He was raised from the dead by the Father in heaven and he is

alive today. How many believe that for the

glory of God? I read, I heard a story.

I should say I heard a pastor tell a story.

So I'm going to leave it at that and just tell you I'm sure it's

a story, OK? I'm pretty sure it's a story,

but the story goes that a man wanted, a married man, wanted to

take his wife and his mother-in-law to the Holy Land

during Easter season. And so he did.

And the problem with it was that his mother-in-law hated him.

His mother-in-law never thought he was good enough for her

daughter. His mother-in-law was always

angry and always mad at him. But he said, I'm going to be the

the good son-in-law and I'm taking her to the Holy Land.

And he did. But while he was there, she

suddenly got sick and she died. She died.

And the man is like, what do I do?

I'm here in Israel. I'm in the Holy Land and my

mother-in-law just died. She went to funeral director and

said, what can I do? And the funeral director said,

well, very simple. He said, we can bury your

mother-in-law here in the Holy Land for $500.

Or if you wish we could, we could send her back to the

state, ship her back. It would cost you $5000.

And he said, well, I need to think about that.

So he thought a little bit and he said to the funeral director,

he said, I tell you what. He said I think I'm going to

take your offer to send her body back to the US And the funeral

director said, why would you do that?

This is the land of the Bible that for $500 you could bury her

right here. Why would you spend $5000?

He said. Well if I remember correctly,

there was a man that died here 2000 years ago and they buried

him and three days later he came to life again.

I can't afford to take that chance.

All the mother-in-law say Amen. I can tell you that Christ was

not reburied because he didn't die again.

I can tell you that Jesus is alive today, Amen.

And I can tell you that he will never die again.

The Bible says in Hebrews 724 But he because he continues

forever as an has an unchangeable priesthood.

Therefore He is able also to save to the uttermost those who

come to God through him, since He always, he always lives not

just Easter Sunday, not just a resurrection day, but Christ is

alive and always alive to make intercession for them.

Paul said in First Corinthians 1534, I delivered to you first

of all that which also I received, that Christ died for

our sins according to the Scripture, that he was buried

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

up from the grave He arose, as the old song says, lo, in the

from the grave he lay, Jesus my Savior waiting the coming day,

Jesus my Lord up from the grave he arose with a mighty triumph

or his foes. He arose a victor over the dark

domain, and he lives forever with his Saints to reign.

He arose, Hallelujah, Christ arose.

There are some notable people in history that have died, but they

never rose from the dead. When I think about it, Abraham,

who's introduced to us in the book of Genesis, and he's the

father of the faithful, the father of Judaism, but he died,

He was buried in The Cave of Mcpeel in Hebron, and he never

rose again. Isaac and Jacob who followed

him, they died and never rose again.

I think of Jacob's son though Joseph.

This is very, I think, very interesting.

I hope you find it that way if you have never thought about it.

But Joseph had a a lengthy time between his death and final

burial. The Bible tells us that before

he died, if you remember, Joseph went down into Egypt.

If you remember, God spared all of Jacob's sons and the family

and actually all of Israel. He saved all of Israel because

Joseph went down into Egypt as a as a slave, became a prisoner,

became Prime Minister and he rescued the nation and he died

there. But before he died, it says in

Genesis 5024, Joseph said to his brethren, I am dying, but God

will surely visit you and bring you out of this land to the land

of which he swore to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob.

Then Joseph took an oath from the children of Israel saying,

God will surely visit you and you shall carry up my bones.

You shall. So Joseph died being 110 years

old, and they embalmed him and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.

But he said my bones aren't staying here.

Hundreds of years later, hundreds of years later, we read

an Exodus 1319. This is when the Passover took

place, and Moses took the bones of Joseph with it.

He took the bones of Joseph with him, for he had placed the

children of Israel under solemn oath, saying, God will surely

visit you and you shall carry up my bones from here with you.

Get this. This man about 400 years earlier

died. Before he died, he said, you

don't leave my bones here. I'm not made for this.

You take me back to the Promised Land.

That's where I want to go. And about 400 years later, the

Passover takes place and Moses help.

We got to take Joseph with us. Joseph's been dead for hundreds

of years, but they got his embalmed body and they took him

with him and they had another 40 years out there in the

wilderness. You know all about that.

And we get over to Joshua 2432. It says the bones of Joseph

which the children of Israel had brought up out of Egypt.

They buried it. Shechem in the plot of ground

with Jacob had bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of

Shechem, for 100 pieces of silver when which had become an

inheritance of the children of Israel.

So we are following on. One man dies and hundreds of

years later they're carrying his bones for another 40 years

through the wilderness. And now in the promised land,

Joshua says, hey, we made a promise to this guy that he gets

buried here. And so they buried him in

Shechem. Talk about a God of detail.

Joseph said, I don't want to be here.

This world's not my home, right? He said, I'm dead, but don't,

don't, don't leave my bones even here.

You know, I there's a nice story I want to tell you real quickly.

True story that happened right in our vicinity.

I was really intrigued. Sister Karen was telling me,

probably, I don't know, a year and a half ago maybe she started

telling me this story, which I knew part of it, but this part

was brand new, she was telling me.

And for all of you that are related to the Justice family,

as it would be certainly yours to tell as well.

And that is not too long before I came here to pastor one of the

members of of the extended family.

One of the family members, a young man probably in his middle

20s or so, died of an undiagnosed illness rather

suddenly, Didn't know he had it. And anyway he had they had a

funeral for him in in Tennessee and they brought his body here

and it was buried in a cemetery out here.

And I've, I've heard the story fine young man, love the Lord

all, all the things and about that.

But this story then takes A twist because about a year and a

half ago, she's telling me that the families decided to move his

body to Tennessee. Now, it came from Tennessee.

They had a funeral in Tennessee and came here for the

internment. They decided that they wanted

him because he had his father lived in Delaware and anyway,

there was a reason for him coming here.

But almost 50 years later, they said it's he ought to be with

the family, family plot here. So about a year, maybe a year

ago or so, this grave was dug up and the casket and vault was

removed. And they took his body to

Tennessee where the family could kind of tend the grave.

That's kind of a remarkable story, right?

I mean it, you might say what would, But they did that that

because it's just the way the family operated.

And I was intrigued by this story.

And it doesn't end there because he had a tombstone and the

tombstone was repurposed and it's now sitting on the grave

with Bob and Louis Justice's name on the tombstone.

So I'm thinking to myself, if somebody came to that cemetery

for years and they saw this young man's tombstone and they

come out there one day and the things dug up and, and the

tombstone sitting over here on Bob and Lois with their names on

it. They not only stole his body,

they even stole his tombstone. But here's what I do know as a

believer. Doesn't matter where his body is

absent from the body present with the Lord.

But I can tell you this whether it's in whether it's in Stevens,

Reemstown, Pennsylvania or Cleveland, TN God knows where

the body is. So when the day comes at the

trumpet sounds and the dead in Christ rise, it won't matter

whether it's from Tennessee or Pennsylvania.

Thank God there is a resurrection.

Buddha lived 500 years before the time of Jesus.

He was a teacher and a philosopher.

He died, he was cremated. His ashes were taken off

everywhere. But there is a place in Sri

Lanka called the Temple of the Tooth, and they claim that there

is one tooth remaining of his body.

That's all that. And it's a it's a sacred place

to them. And that was Buddha's final,

final resting place, shall we say.

But I can tell you this Buddha never rose from the dead.

Confucius of China, who is a great philosopher, is dead.

He died 500 years before Christ. He was buried in China,

thousands of his descendants buried along with him over the

years. But Confucius has not risen

either. I want you to also know that

Muhammad lived 600 years after Jesus, and he was buried in a

mosque in Medina, but he has not risen either.

And then there is Lenin, the the one who was the architect of

communism. He died in 1924, and his body is

on display in a glass crypt that is climate controlled.

You could see his body and there's a sign there that says

it says here lies linen. Can I tell you that he has not

risen either? But the one that we're talking

about today, the one that we're singing about today, the one

that we're preaching about today, when you go to his tomb

in Jerusalem, it's empty today. It's empty because he's alive.

He's risen. He is not here.

Hallelujah, Hallelujah. This is an exciting story.

Christ is alive, Romans 64, Paul said.

Therefore, we are buried with him, We're buried with him

through baptism into death. That just as Christ was raised

from the dead by the glory of the Father over, Even so we also

now, right now are walking in newness of life.

Thank God. I may not have a new body right

now, but I got a new life. And that new life is in Jesus

Christ our Lord and Savior. Can you say Amen and praise the

Lord? Hallelujah.

So we know that Christ is alive. We know that he is the living

God. Remember that I said earlier in

this message that Jesus was comparable or comparable to the

sun, even though the SUN is dimmer, shall we say, than

Jesus? The Bible says in second Peter

119. And so we have the prophetic

word confirm, which you do well to heed as a light that shines

in the dark place until the day dawns.

And the morning star, there's a different one.

The morning star rises in your heart.

The morning star in the Bible is a symbol of Jesus Christ, the

light of the world who brought the hope of salvation and that

sovereign Lord that controls all of creation.

He is the bright and morning star.

In fact, Jesus says it himself in Revelation 2216.

I, Jesus, have sent my Angel to testify to you these things in

the churches. I am the root and the offspring

of David, the bright and the morning star.

It's the star that outshines all others.

I said. It is the bright star, the

morning star, the day star. It is the star that shines and

will never, never go out. Think about it.

As I said earlier, our sun in our solar system is a star.

It's almost a perfect ball of hot plasma located at the center

of our solar system, and it provides a lot.

It provides the energy for us. The sun is very important to us,

but I tell you that Jesus is the most powerful source of light.

We couldn't live without him, Amen.

He's the brightest light in all of the universe.

In fact, he's so bright that the Bible talks about when the New

Jerusalem comes down, it tells us in Revelation 2123, the city

had no need of the sun. So if it burns out, it burns

out, right? It didn't need the sun anyway.

It doesn't even need the moon for the glory.

I said the glory of God illuminated it, and the Lamb is

it's light. Amen.

Don't worry, I'm almost finished.

Although we don't have church tonight, I guess I could preach

to another sermon right now. Not going to do it.

I'm not going to do it, but thank you anyway.

Jay, you get me in trouble, but then you're going to have to

bail me out. But I want to tell you though,

he is the light and I want to close though with a thought, I'm

going to ask the musicians, the worship team to come back around

because there's something that I, I heard that just I never

heard anybody say this before. I don't know how many familiar

at all with the name Ronnie Henson, but Ron Henson wrote a

number of songs and it was a part of the Henson family.

My wife and I actually went to a singing back in the 70s in Goose

Creek, SC and we heard them and they were just a fireball young

group. But he wrote a song back during

that time called The Lighthouse. It's been sung here before, I'm

quite sure. But it says in part, there's a

lighthouse on a hillside that overlooks life C And when I'm

tossed, it sends out a light that I might see.

And the light that shines in darkness now will safely lead me

home. If it wasn't for the lighthouse,

my ship would sail no more. And the course says, and I thank

God for the lighthouse. I owe my life to him.

Jesus is the lighthouse. And from the rocks of sin he has

shown his light around me that I might clearly see.

If it wasn't for the lighthouse, tell me, where would this ship

be? And I heard Ron Henson say this.

He's the writer of the song, and he described the night after the

crucifixion of Jesus. And he talked about when the

disciples, it sunk in that Jesus was really dead.

They had a hard time believing that, as you know, all along,

Jesus was telling them he's going to die and he's going to

go to Calvary, told them the whole thing.

And they had such a hard time with it.

But he said that night after the crucifixion, it must have seemed

like the darkest night in history.

And he said those, these words, it's like an ocean with no

shore, no hope of ever finding safety.

And that's, I don't know why, but that just stuck out.

An ocean with no shore, no hope of ever finding safety.

I can't even begin to. If you've been on a cruise

somewhere, you probably know that if you can get out,

obviously you do get out in the ocean where you don't see any

land anywhere, but you do know that there is land and there's a

shore and that's your destiny. But he said for those disciples

that night, it was like there was an ocean with no shore.

And in my mind, I just got to thinking about being on a ship,

storm tossed, and there's no shore, no matter how far you

travel, no hope of ever finding land.

But he said some still hung on. And then we know what happened.

On Sunday morning, the lighthouse began to shine.

And hope came back to the world The night after Jesus died.

And while he was in that tomb, it was dark.

It was very dark. And it seemed like all hope was

gone. And I think his description was

really perfect. And there are people today that

still don't know there's a shore, There's people and could

be even sitting in here, people who are in a troubled sea and

you've run out of hope because you don't think there's anywhere

you can land safely. There's no shore.

But I'm here to tell you that hope has come when Jesus was

raised from the dead, no matter how far you were out on Live

Sea. And you may not be able to see a

shore anywhere on the horizon, anywhere you look, but I assure

you there is a shore and there is a lighthouse.

And that gives us hope. And by the way, hope has a name.

I said Hope has a name, and that name is Jesus.

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