As He Said

Well, as all of us know, we're shortly after the beginning of the spring holy days now, the days of Passover, and then the days of Unleavened Bread. And I hope all of us have been able to learn through this time, because it is a special time that God sets apart for us to learn to draw close to Him and to learn to seek His faith, as we had presented in our sermonette. I think it's interesting to see that seeking the face of God is a common statement that you see in the Old Testament, and Jesus says in the Beatitudes that in order to see God, it says, blessed are those who are pure in heart. And so we want to clearly, honestly, and sincerely, as the days of Unleavened Bread point out, that we need to live unleavened lives of sincerity and truth. In order to see God, we're growing in that divine nature, and that's a wonderful blessing, not only in the future, but even right now, because we can share with Him in His outlook and attitude. And of course, during the spring holy days, we hopefully are able to see and then learn how to overcome sin. Sin that exists around us and exists oftentimes, too oftentimes in us. And yet we're able to overcome that through faith in Jesus Christ. We're able to do that through the help and power and the encouragement and strength that comes from recognizing our need, and depending on the one who is able to give us a victory over sin. I want us to look at Leviticus 23 as I begin the sermon today, because it mentions a particular offering that was given during the days of Unleavened Bread. It's one that we are familiar with, and so I know I'm not telling you anything new, but it's one that we need to be mindful of, because we celebrate the death of Jesus for forgiveness of our sin. We need that ransom. We need His covering, His covering blood. And then, of course, we live through a days of Unleavened Bread that points out sin and helps us in understanding how to overcome and how we can succeed. And yet here in Leviticus 23, it says in verse 9, it talks about something that they did there in Israel during the days of Unleavened Bread. It says, the Lord spoke to Moses and said, Speak to the people of Israel and say, When you enter the land that I'm giving you, and you reap its harvest, you shall bring the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest. And so this was a directive as they get into the Promised Land, as they no longer are then dependent on the bread from heaven, because manna was available to them during a 40-year period of time, and then it stopped. It ceased.

And apparently there was some special manna that was put into the ark, because it must have lasted and lasted and lasted. I don't know where that is today. That'd be interesting to find. But of course it lasted thereafter. And again, I don't have any idea. I know it was part of what was in the ark, but I don't know where that has become lost at this point. But here it talks about an activity where the priest was to have a sheaf of the harvest, the very first of that harvest.

And in verse 11, he was to raise the sheaf before the Lord, that you may find acceptance on the day after the Sabbath, the priest shall raise it. And so they were directed. Israel was directed during the seven-day period of the days of Unleavened Bread. One of those days undoubtedly has to be a weekly Sabbath. That's what this is speaking of, a weekly Sabbath. On the day after the weekly Sabbath, the priest shall raise it, and on the day when you raise the sheaf, you shall offer a lamb. Interesting to me as far as, you know, different times you see different offerings given, and I'm certainly not an expert on offerings in Israel, and often, you know, the many different meanings and variations that I'm sure others can talk about it quite a bit.

But it's interesting to me to see what the offerings were in connection with this wave sheep offering. It says, on the day they raise the sheep, you shall offer a lamb, a lamb, a year old without blemish, and a burnt offering to the Lord, as a burnt offering, and you are to offer a grain offering, or a meal, or flour offering.

That appears to me to have, I don't again know a lot about grain offerings, but seems to have something in connection with bread, although I don't believe it's bread directly, but it's grain or a meal offering. And it describes how it's supposed to be. And there is to be an offering by fire, a pleasing odor to the Lord, and a drink offering with it shall be of wine. And so in this particular offering there was a lamb that was grain and wine.

And it says, you shall eat no bread, or parched grain, or fresh ears, until the very day, until you have brought the offering of your God, the statue forever, throughout your generations, in all your settlement. Now, I don't know that that's described other places and give us more detail, but I think you can easily see that there certainly seems to be a connection with the lamb, and with grain, or maybe bread and wine, in the offerings that were given in connection with this wave-sheaf offering.

And of course, that wave-sheaf offering was the very first of the harvest. And of course, I know most of you are familiar that this is referring to the role that Jesus Christ has in the harvest of mankind. He is the very first of the firstfruits who are accepted. Now, we are called firstfruits as far as those who come to understand the truth of God in this age. We are called firstfruits, but there's a very first of the firstfruits, and that firstfruits was Jesus Christ.

He, of course, had been with the Father. He had been glorified. He was willing to give that up and to become like us, to be able to overthrow Satan, to be able to have a victory over sin, to shed his blood, so that all of us could understand the need that we have for him and our dependence upon him. Because again, as the captain of our salvation, he's the one that is going to enable us and empower us to be a part of God's family. If we look in 1 Corinthians 15, 1 Corinthians 15 is actually a remarkable chapter, and yet I'm wanting to read just a few of the verses now, and I'll read some of the others a little later.

Because for Jesus to rise from the dead was a miracle that God performed, a miracle that clearly was within his ability and capacity, and yet the resurrection from the dead is a remarkable activity that took place then and that has taken place in a few physical individuals' lives, and it's going to take place in many individuals' lives as we go forward. Here in 1 Corinthians 15 it says in verse 20, in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the firstfruits of those who have died.

And so as the firstborn or the first begotten son of God, and then having lived his life and died, he was resurrected. He was raised from the dead, a supernatural intervention from God, resuming the glory that he had had with the Father after that. And to think about that, to think about what was happening, to think about how incredible that was, to think about how remarkable it is and how important it is really to us is fascinating.

It says, for since verse 21, death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being.

For as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Jesus Christ.

The following Adam, you know, the only outcome is going to be death. Following Jesus Christ, the outcome is going to be eternal life. But he says in verse 23, each in his own order. You know, God is working out a plan, and he is doing that in an orderly fashion. And it says Jesus, or Christ, the first fruits, and then at his coming, those who belong to Christ. And so that is a grouping that we desire to be a part of. Whether we are a dead in Christ, as clearly some people are in that category, as Carol would be, as we think about this recent death. I know this has been in the past month or so. Or, you know, those of us who are alive and well. You know, we're going to be changed. At least, if we're still alive, we're going to be changed. But if we've died, then the dead in Christ are going to be resurrected from the dead. And yet, in an order that God has designed.

So it's amazing as we read the Gospel accounts of Jesus. The last week of Jesus' life is described in graphic detail in each of the four Gospels. Now, there are differences in the way that they recorded different things, and so you put them all together and you see exactly what it was that took place. And yet, the resurrection of the dead, or the resurrection from the dead for Jesus, is certainly the most important of many topics that we could ever think about or study. Because, as Paul continues, well, I'll read that after a while. Without that, we don't have any hope.

We don't have any hope of rising from the dead ourselves. So in order to rise from the dead, you know, Jesus had to rise for us. Jesus had to rise from the dead. And it's interesting to see that you know, Jesus must have been a little frustrated, although surely, maybe I shouldn't even say that. He had to be well-knowing that the disciples, as he continued to talk to them and continued to work with them and continue to perform miracles before their eyes and continue to try to help them grow in faith. He kept telling them something that just seemed incredulous. That's what we read in Matthew. I want to look at the few verses here. Matthew 16. Matthew 16, verse 21, it says, from that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he's going to go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders, at the hands of the chief priests and the scribes, and he's going to be killed and on the third day be raised. Verse 22 is amazing.

Now Peter chews out Jesus for doing this, for saying this. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. Boy, talk about difficulties that Peter later would come to see. And of course, Jesus said, or Peter said, God forbid, Lord, that never happened to you. And of course, Jesus said, well, get behind me, Satan. You're a stumbling block to me, for you are setting your mind not on the divine things, but on human things. See, that also gives us an indication of what we ought to be setting our mind on, what we ought to be focused on and thinking about. But see, you see this account. This was something that Peter clearly didn't understand. Jesus told him what was going to happen. The rest of the disciples were aware of it, and none of them could comprehend that that was going to happen. If we go on to chapter 20, chapter 20 says in verse 17, this is actually very close to the time when Jesus is to be in Jerusalem and is going to be there for the final time and ultimately fulfill this prophecy. Verse 17, while Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the 12 disciples aside by themselves and said to them on the way, see, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death. And then they will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and on the third day he will be raised. Again, he kept telling them. You read this in Matthew, you read it in others of the Gospels. Their understanding was restricted, though they didn't yet fully comprehend, although they were learning. Who it was? He had asked them and asked Peter, you know, who do people say I am? Well, they say all kinds of things, but who do you think I am?

Well, you're the Son of God. You are the Messiah. And he told him, well, that's been revealed to you from the Father. The Father is giving you that understanding, and so, okay, they could give the right word. They could say the right name, but could they really believe that he's going to rise from the dead? Well, why not? They've watched him raise Lazarus from the dead. They were there whenever he did that. They realized God could do that, but they still had difficulty understanding, you know, exactly what Jesus was telling them. And even in Matthew 28, when you see the fulfillment of Jesus having been crucified and then buried in chapter 28, verse 1, it says after Matthew 28, verse 1, after the Sabbath, at the first day of the week, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. So he had been buried. He had been enclosed in the heart of the earth. He had been in a tomb. And it says suddenly, it was a great earthquake and an angel descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.

Now that's an interesting verse, and whenever you put together the different accounts, you see that there's some variation in the way this is described. And I know I've read this before, and I thought, oh, did the angel roll back the tomb so that Jesus could get out? No.

You know, that makes no sense at all. I mean, that's somewhat of a common idea. Oh, the tomb opened up and Jesus crawled out. That is simply not right. Actually, the angel rolls back the tomb so that they can get in, so that they can verify he's not here. He hasn't been here for about 12 hours. He hasn't been here. He is risen. But it goes ahead to say, his appearance, the angel, was like lightning, his clothing white as snow, and for fear of him the guard shook and became like dead men. You know, they were petrified. Oh, how can this be happening on our guard?

You know, we were sent here, and we're supposed to be guarding this, and all of a sudden, an earthquake happens, the stone rolls away, the angel's sitting here looking at us, and we're having depends problems. We're having serious problems right now with what's happening before our eyes. But the angel said to the women, don't be afraid.

I know you're looking for Jesus. Who was crucified? I know why you're here. I know that you want to see him. You want to prepare his body as you're planning. But what he says in verse 6 is that he's not here. He hasn't been here for a short time. He's certainly not here on Sunday morning, as this was apparently a Sunday morning. But he's not here, for he has been raised as he said. You can write that down. That's the sermon title. You better write it down. That way, you won't miss it. As he said, is what I'm wanting to focus on in that verse, he's raised, as he said, he's already, you know, he had nothing to say about him being resurrected right then.

He hasn't been there for a while. You know, if he's going to be raised to the glorified state that he would be in with his resurrection, then he didn't have to move the rocks. He didn't have.

You know, he could just go through the rocks, which he did. And he did that when he said he would do it. As he said, he had been resurrected some 12 hours or so prior to this time. Here in Matthew 28, the Scripture, again, I know you're familiar with, but I think it's good for us to go over these and kind of rehearse the scenarios that, and again, in the good news, we've got a really good chart, makes it real easy to see kind of what was happening and what verses point out this. And so I know all of you are reading that and are familiar with this. But I think it's fascinating to see that, you know, Jesus predicted what would happen, and he did it exactly as he and the Father had planned. In verse 38, some of the scribes, this is Matthew 12, some of the scribes and Pharisees said, teacher, we wish to see a sign from you. What were they? Blind? They couldn't see the sign of him healing people who were brought to him. He couldn't see the sign of him casting out demons and telling them, don't talk about me, because I don't like your lack of verification. You know, you know who I am, but I want you to just be quiet. So they said we seek a sign, but he answered them and says, an evil and adulterous generation asked for a sign, but no sign will be given except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish. So for three days and three nights, the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth. So this is what he said. Now he told them numerous times, he told the disciples numerous times. In this case, he was actually saying the sign to the Pharisees is that I'm going to be in the grave. I'm going to be buried for 72 hours, for three days and three nights, as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish. And so this is talking about a 72-hour period of time, not talking about a 36-hour period of time that you can quite easily see from Friday evening through Friday night and through Sabbath and Saturday night and Sunday morning. That would be about 36 hours. That doesn't make sense that Jesus would say, this is what I intend to do. So this is what Jesus said, and we need to be able to see exactly how it is that that occurred. Now, popular belief, of course, for probably most of us in the past, although maybe we didn't think about it much, maybe we didn't think about how important it is that Jesus said, this is the Son. This is what you can depend on. But popular belief discards Jesus' direct statement about his resurrection, the length of time that he would be buried. And then the fact that they exalt his resurrection, certainly most Protestant and even, I guess, all Christian organizations would believe that Jesus was resurrected from the dead in whatever manner they may understand that. And yet, certainly to understand that he did it exactly as he said is not something that they believe. The problem with the commonly accepted belief regarding the crucifixion and then the resurrection is that there are not three days and three nights between Friday afternoon and Sunday morning. You know, that just doesn't compute. And when they try to say that, well, it only means parts of three days and three nights. If this phrase means parts of three days and three nights, which many scholars claim, that is a projected explanation in order to fit into the common scenario. If it actually means three parts of three days and three nights, now there's still a problem. Because although you can find parts of three days between Friday and Sunday, it's impossible to find parts of three nights. Nowhere could that be figured out.

So, to understand the truth on this subject, to understand that Jesus said what he said and to understand what he did, it's important to recognize that there were two Sabbath days, Sabbath, whether weekly or annual, during that week of Jesus' death. And again, see that to us, to those of us who are the saints of the Most High, to those of us who understand and who observe the Holy Days, that is not an uncommon thought. You know, we know that Sabbaths, they occur weekly on Saturday. They occur annually on, we don't know when it's going to happen. You know, it varies. You know, a Sabbath could be Sunday, could be Monday, too. I'm sure there, I'm not up on the calendar. I'm certainly not an expert in that. But a Sabbath could occur, an annual Sabbath could occur on most any other of the days. And that's clearly what was going on.

Whenever Jesus was in the final week of his life, and he was coming, and he was celebrating with his disciples the Passover. You know, that was clearly the time they had come to Jerusalem, and the Passover time, the spring Holy Day time, was there. And on the day, that would be the Passover Day, and actually the day that he would be crucified during the daylight portion of the Passover Day, the evening before, the evening before, he was instituting the New Testament Passover of the bread and the wine that would be emblems that would represent his body and his blood given for us. And so Jesus was crucified on that Passover Day. And whenever you look at any of the descriptions of the Holy Days, you know, what kind of a day followed the Passover? Well, the first day of the days of Unleavened Bread. You know, all of us are familiar with that. That's a Sabbath day. It's an annual Sabbath. And of course, it can occur on any day of the week, mostly. And as we're going to see, it appears that Jesus was actually put to death on the Passover Day on a Wednesday. And then this next day was a Sabbath, but it was a high Sabbath. And it was a day that was not on Saturday, but on Thursday. So in Luke 23, I'm again, I know that you have to go through and kind of study all of these and put them together. And you know, you can have a harmony of the Gospels and you can work through all of that. And I'm only briefly covering part of this so that you, I'm sure, will be able to, or I hope that you're able to follow whatever I am explaining. But here in Luke 23, you see the description of the crucifixion and then the death of Jesus. And starting in verse 50, you see a section of Scripture from verse 50 on down to the end of that chapter that is misunderstood by most. It says in verse 50, now there was a good and righteous man named Joseph, Joseph of Arimathea, who though he was a member of the Sanhedrin, he was a Pharisee, he was a part of the council. He had not agreed to their plan in action.

He hadn't been going along with all of the hypocritical blame and accusation. And he had been very skeptical of what the leadership of the religious community was doing. But it says, he came from the Jewish town of Arimathea and he was waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God.

He desired the Messiah. He desired to have God's intervention in the world.

This man, verse 52, went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. And again, you see these accounts in Mark and in Matthew as well. And John's account is a little different. As you know, it varies some from the standard or the pattern of the others. But when you put them all together, it's amazing as far as what is actually happening. In verse 53, Joseph took the body of Jesus down and he wrapped it in a linen cloth and he laid it in a rock-hueen tomb where no one had been laid.

So he had a new tomb that could be used. He was willing to do that. He didn't want. Usually, individuals who were crucified were not handled in that form of a dignified way, buried. They were usually just cast aside and the dogs had fun. It was remarkable that God provided, in this case, Joseph to do this. And it says in verse 54, the day in which he was crucified, it was the day of preparation, which the Passover day is always the day of preparation, a day of preparing before the first day of the Days of Unleavened Bread, which is an annual Sabbath, which, as we said, might occur throughout any part of the week. But on that day when Jesus was crucified, and then later in the very evening of the day when he would be buried, it was the day of preparation.

And the Sabbath was beginning, or it was toward the time when the Sabbath would begin, which would be in that evening. Now, of course, what Sabbath is talking about? Well, it's talking about the first day of the Days of Unleavened Bread. You see that in John 19, because you see John providing information that the other gospels do not directly provide.

But here in John 19, verse 31, again talking about Jesus' crucifixion, his death, in verse 31 it says, since it was the day of preparation, and the Jews did not want the bodies to be left on the cross during the Sabbath, especially because that day was a day of great solemnity. It was a high Sabbath, a high day. It makes a clarification here about which day this was. And again, to those of us who are familiar with the Holy Day pattern, well, of course, it was a Sabbath. It was a Sabbath, the day immediately following his death on the Passover day.

That evening began the high Sabbath day described here in John 19. So let's go back to Luke 23.

So you have a Wednesday evening burial. You have the high day on Thursday. You have a Thursday night. You have a Friday. You have a Friday night. You have a Saturday or a weekly Sabbath day. And then you find in that evening of that Sabbath day was three days and three nights when Jesus said he would be in the heart of the earth. That's when he was resurrected. He was resurrected. Again, he didn't have to move any rocks. He actually was real neat about it. He rolled up all the stuff. He rolled up the cloth. He made preparation there. So whenever it was eventually found, it didn't look like it had been plundered. It hadn't been pillaged by the disciples or by the guards because there's obvious verification that they were supposed to be doing.

But if we go back to Luke 23, you see in verse 54, it was the day of preparation when he was buried and the Sabbath was beginning or dawning. And the women who had come with him, come with Joseph from Galilee, followed and they saw the tomb and they saw how the body was laying. So they realized, here we are entering into a high Sabbath day. We see where they put him. We know where he is.

Whether they fully believed that he would rise from the dead or not, they were observing.

And it says in verse 56, then they returned. They went back. They were observing the high Sabbath day and then they went back home. That's what it's saying. They returned to their homes. They observed the high Sabbath day. And on Friday then, it doesn't directly say, but it says they prepared the spices and the ointments that they were going to then bring back to bring to the gravesite. And then on the Sabbath, and this appears to be the weekly Sabbath, the regular weekly Sabbath that would have been, again, the third day since Jesus had been put to death and then later buried on that weekly Sabbath, they rested according to the commandment. And of course, verse 24 starts talking about Sunday morning. Again, you know, understanding that there were two different Sabbath days, one on Thursday and one on Saturday in that particular week enables us to understand how Jesus would be there for three nights and then three days and in the evening of the Sabbath actually be resurrected from the dead. He would rise to be, once again, in a glorified form and able to come and go as he pleased, as he certainly was going to do, and teaching the disciples and others following this. You know, it's amazing to see in John chapter 20 the account that John has of the resurrection or of the finding of Jesus having already been resurrected because that's actually what it says. It's amazing to see the impact that this had on a follower of Jesus. It says in John 20, verse 1, early on the first day of the week while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb, saw the stone had been removed from the tomb, so she ran and went to Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to him, they have taken the Lord out of the tomb. We don't know where they played him. When she got there before sunrise on Sunday morning, you know, he was already missing. He was already gone.

And so she ran back to tell Peter and John, and then Peter and the other disciple, being John, sent out and went toward the tomb. And the two were running together, but the other disciple, John, outran Peter and reached the tomb first. You know, this may have been because John was a little younger. I don't know. That certainly, you know, he was going to live the longest, so whether he was a little younger than some of the others, possibly that's the case. At least he was a better track person than Peter. Anyway, the two running together, John outran Peter, he reached the tomb, he bent down and looked in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he didn't go in. You know, that was, he was a little hesitant about going in. It appears that the stone was already out of the way. You know, the earthquake had already rolled the stone, or the angel had rolled the stone so that they could get in, not so he could get out.

That again is a misperception that I think, you know, people probably don't really think about, but he bent down to look in, he saw the linen wrappings, and when Peter got there, he came, followed him, and went into the tomb. So Peter gets there, as he often does, you know, crashes through the door, goes in, you know, starts looking around. Peter went into the tomb, he saw the linen wrappings lying there and the cloth that had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself. He had it all rolled up, placed neatly on the place where his head would be. You know, obviously, you know, he hadn't been stolen away. He hadn't been, you know, confiscated in some way. He truly had rose from the dead.

And so in verse 8, it says, the other disciple. Of course, that's the way John refers to himself in his writing. The other disciple reached the tomb first, who reached the tomb first. He also went in, and he saw, and he believed, it was an indication, you know, that John came to a perception at that point that Peter and the others did not quite fully comprehend. He believed when he saw that Jesus had disappeared. He was raised from the dead. He was not here.

As he said, three days and three nights after he would be put into the grave, he would rise from the dead, and he came to believe that Jesus was the Son of God.

He recognized. He knew that in his head. Now, there's a certain matter of knowing something, and yet really fully being believer and convicted of that. That appears to have happened to John because it goes on to say, for as yet they didn't understand the Scripture that he need to rise from the dead. They didn't fully realize that. And so it says, the disciples returned to their home. It's amazing, and of course, this is what we want to appreciate from this scenario that Jesus rose from the dead. It was a primary point of Christian belief and of our belief as we see he did what he said he would do. He did it through the power of God. I think it's interesting to see the guards. Matthew, we go back to Matthew. Matthew 27. You not only see the impact on the disciples because in this case, John was going to come to believe maybe prior to the others. The others were going to come to believe as they then saw Jesus appear to them. He's going to come to them here during this day, and then beyond that, he is going to interact with them, and they're going to believe that he is the Son of God. But it says that John came to believe when he saw he's not here.

He's not. He's been resurrected by the Father. He is the Son of God.

And so in chapter 27 of Matthew, verse 62, it says, the next day, that is the day after the day of preparation. And so here they are on the high day. Nice observance of the high day. The next day, that is the day after the preparation, the chief priest and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, sir, we remember that this impostor said while he was still alive that after three days, I'm going to rise again. You know, they apparently conducted business, at least going before Pilate in this case because, you know, the day that he was crucified was the day of preparation and the next day was the high day. And so therefore, in verse 64, command the tomb to be made secure until the third day, and otherwise his disciples will go and steal him away and they'll tell the people he's been raised from the dead. And the last deception would be worse than the first. And Pilate says, you do it. You have a guard of soldiers, go and make it as secure as you can. You know, Pilate almost is a little bit of what, sarcastic, go and do, you know, I thought we were, this was a rigged deal anyway, go and make it secure as you can. So they went with the guard, made the tomb secure by stealing the stone. So they went over there and they put some more rocks on the side because I think the door was one that would roll, you know, they could roll it into place. At least I understand. So they probably put more rocks and more guards. And there may have been 60 guards, at least the, I read that, I don't know whether that's true or not. There may have been a bunch of guards there. And of course, you know, these guys were witnesses to the truth. They were witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. And amazingly, down in chapter 28, you know, they go and find him in the empty tomb because that's all they could really find.

It says in verse 11, while they were going, some of the guards, the guard went into the city and they told the chief priest what had happened. So the chief priest apparently didn't stay out there and kind of keep watch on the guards. And they let the guards do their job. And so the guards come back and tell them what happened. We tried, didn't work. After the priest had assembled with the elders, they devised a plan to give a large sum of money to the soldiers, telling them, you must say the disciples came by night and stolen away while we were sleeping.

Now talk about slitting your own throat. You know, the guards are there to protect the tomb, to not let him get away. And if they go to sleep on, you know, when they're supposed to be awake, then that was a death sentence to them. And so I don't know how much money, you know, probably more than Judas got. But of course, this is a, you know, a description of political chicanery.

And in this case, religious chicanery, telling them, you've got to say the disciples came by night and stolen away. And if this comes to the governor's ear, so if the authorities find out about this, then we'll satisfy him and we'll keep you out of trouble. So they took the cash and ran.

You know, they fell into this trap that the religious leaders were creating. So they took the money and they did as they were directed. And this story is still told among the Jews to this day. Matthew was writing this a few decades after this happened, I believe. And it was still well known about what happened. And probably some of those guards were still alive. They knew what happened. But see, the resurrection from the dead is an absolutely remarkable event. And clearly, the resurrection of Jesus paves the way for us. Let's look in 1 Corinthians 15. You know, in 1 Corinthians 15, you see Paul writing about the resurrection of the dead. And unfortunately, you know, he had to contend with people who didn't believe, some even of the theropharoses' agencies. They didn't believe in the resurrection from the dead. That's kind of a sad life. You know, pretty sad that you think this is it. You know, this is it. That there's nothing more. But here in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says, I hand it on to you. This is in verse 3. I hand it on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received. So he was telling the church, I'm telling you what is really important, what is really significant is that Jesus died for our sins in accordance with the Scripture, that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scripture, and that he appeared to Peter or to Cephas and to the twelve, and then he appeared to more than 500 brethren at one time, and most of whom are still alive, though some have died, and then he appeared to James and to all the apostles, and last of all, as of one untimely born, he appeared to me.

You know, Paul was stating about the many different incidents that you see described of Jesus appearing to the disciples and appearing, you know, to other individuals after his death, and he says he even later appeared to me. He even describes how that is an amazing fact, but it was clearly the fact that Paul could verify not only from the others who told him, but he could be an eyewitness. So down in verse 12, he in a sense is making an argument here. He says, if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there's no resurrection of the dead? Even some of the members of the church got confused with some of the religious confusion that was projected, oh, the dead don't rise. How can that be? If there's no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. So we are even found to be misrepresenting God because we testified of God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it's true that the dead are not raised. So he is appealing to them that this makes no sense.

You know, Jesus was resurrected from the dead, and so there has to be a resurrection from the dead, and if any of them had been around when Lazarus was there, you know, they had to verify that because he was dead, and then after four days he was alive, and he was eating with them and talking to them and explaining that I didn't know a thing for four days. He wasn't explaining to them about heaven. See, that's the misconception that some today would have, you know, some afterlife experience, and then, you know, this is amazing. So it says in verse 16, if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised, but if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is in vain. It's futile, and you are still in your sins in verse 17, and then those also who have died in Christ have perished. You know, what's the use of being a Christian if there is nothing beyond the grave? So if in this life only we have hoped in Christ, then we are of all men most miserable, fear of all people most pity. But, he says in verse 20, in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, and he is the very first fruit of those who have died. And we read this earlier. So it's fascinating to see how it is, you know, that not only Jesus told his disciples what was going to happen, and he explained to them what they could expect, and in a sense they were still a little unbelieving, but ultimately they had to fully believe. And I'm sure in the days following that, as we don't have time to read the accounts of him interacting with the disciples in John 21, you see that, John 20 and John 21, Luke 24, you see him interacting with the disciples, and you see him helping comments to come to fully believe that he is the Son of God.

But see, the real blessing as we read here in 1 Corinthians 15 is that, you know, the very basis for our faith is that Jesus was raised from the dead. And because of that, we can be thankful.

We can be thankful. We can be very thankful and very grateful that he has seen fit to draw us to an understanding of the Word of God, and that we can understand how that, you know, two different Sabbath days, one day apart, were fulfilling this three-day and three-night prediction that Jesus made, and that he was resurrected exactly as he said. And because of him, and because of that, you know, we have the hope of our resurrection to eternal life.