Three Days, Three Nights

There's so much benefit, so much wonderful, uplifting benefit to the holy days that God has us observe. And clearly, these beginning holy days, in a sense, do lead us into the entire year. Because clearly, it begins with a focus on Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, the Passover itself, representing what He did for all of us. How it was that the Father was so concerned about us that He would send a Redeemer. And we have a lot to be thankful for in that regard. As we've mentioned, this is a weekly Sabbath day. As we've mentioned, yesterday was the last day of the Days of Unleavened Bread. It is an annual holy day. During this week, from Sunday to Saturday, we've had an annual holy day, that was yesterday. And now we're observing this weekly Sabbath. And that is, in some ways, very familiar to all of us, or to most of us, if we've done this for a number of years. If we've been a part of the Church of God and had an awareness of what it is that God teaches, what the Bible shows, then we're very familiar with that. But I want us to think about something that happened. It happened during the Days of Unleavened Bread the year that Jesus died. He clearly was with His disciples keeping the Days of Unleavened Bread, or what would be called, and you see this term used in different times, the Passover or the Passover season, or the Days of Unleavened Bread. They're all referring to the spring holy day season. And He had told His disciples to prepare the Passover meal. They met together. They ate that meal. He instituted the new symbols. And later that night, He was betrayed, and He was tried, or mistried. And throughout the night and into the next day, ultimately before Pilate, He proclaimed that I'm the King of the Kingdom of God.

Clearly something that we proclaim as a gospel message because that's what Jesus talked about. But we also know that throughout that day, then He died, and He was buried. And then the Days of Unleavened Bread, that was actually just leading into the Days of Unleavened Bread. There were going to be seven days that followed that. And during the time of the Days of Unleavened Bread is when Jesus would not only be in the grave for three days and three nights, but that He would be resurrected. He would be resurrected. He would return and actually talk with some of His followers.

He would ascend to the throne of God. And He would, in a sense, resume the role that He has always had, that of being the Word, actually even taking on more dimension as far as now being our Savior, being our Redeemer. He was predicted to be that, and now He actually was. And yet I want us to think about the significance of the fact that He was in the grave three days and three nights.

That, again, I know is not new to any of us. It may be new to, I guess, a few of you, but it's information that not only has great significance because it deals with an understanding of the resurrection. You might also think about this as, why is it that I have hope? Not me, but you. Why is it that you have hope in eternal life? Why do you have hope in eternal life? Well, the reason should be because Jesus rose from the dead.

Jesus had fulfilled the mission that He came to earth for. He had been in the grave three days and three nights. As we know, people commonly misunderstand that topic. They somehow try to figure out how between Friday and Sunday, three days and three nights occurred, which is impossible, as we all know. And yet, why does it make any difference? What is important about that? And again, why do we have the hope of eternal life? Well, it's because of Jesus' resurrection. And I guess we should think, how is it that we would explain? How is it that you would explain the three days and the three nights that Jesus was in the heart of the earth?

I want us to look in Leviticus 23, because this is where all of the Holy Days are listed. And yet, you find that during the days of 11 Bored, there would be another activity that would take place. And one that, in some ways, is not maybe real easy to understand, because we don't live in the Palestine area, we don't live in the area of the Middle East, or we don't have the harvest seasons in exactly the same way they do.

But it says in verse 9, Leviticus 23, verse 9, The Lord said to Moses, speak to the children of Israel, say, When you come into the land, which I am going to give you, and reap its harvest, you shall bring a sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest. And so they were directed as they came into the land, as they were beginning to grow crops, that this would be one of the offerings that would occur during the days of 11 Bored.

And it says in verse 11, He shall waive that sheaf before the Lord to be accepted on your behalf. And on the day after the Sabbath, meaning after the weekly Sabbath, during a seven-day period of time, the days of 11 Bored, there's always going to be at least one.

There might be two, or at least there would be at least one that would be during that period of time. And that weekly Sabbath, I guess I was wrong in saying it might be two, there wouldn't be two. There would always only be one. But I want to point this out because it is something that we need to know in this topic.

On the day after the weekly Sabbath, the priest shall waive it. And he shall offer on that day when you waive the sheaf. And so in addition to this wave-sheaf offering, he also is to offer a male lamb of the first year without blemish as a born offering to the Lord. And so in addition to this wave-sheaf, there was to be a lamb. In verse 13, a grain offering mixed with fine flour, an offering made by fire, and its drink offering made of wine. And so again, a lamb and bread or flour and wine is involved in this particular offering.

I think you can see the connection there why this would indicate the Lamb of God and Jesus Christ, who would fulfill this particular role. It says in verse 14, you shall eat neither bread nor parched grain nor fresh grain, until the same day that you have bought this offering to your God. For it's a statute forever, ever, throughout your generations and all your dwellings, and you shall count.

So in verse 15, it even directs us that, well, on this particular day that the wave-sheaf is offered, then that's when you begin counting and preparing for knowing for sure when the Feast of Pentecost or the Feast of Weeks would be. You shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, again after the weekly Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering. You should count seven Sabbaths shall be completed. Count fifty days to the day after that seven Sabbaths, and you should offer a new grain offering.

And so then he starts to talk about what we would later call the day of Pentecost, the Feast of Pentecost.

Well, I go through this and mention this particular activity because we want to understand how this applies to Jesus Christ. It's not talking about his death that was dealing with the Passover, but it is talking about his resurrection. It is talking about his resurrection and his ascending to the Father. And once again assuming a role that he has had for eternity. Let's look in 1 Corinthians 15. 1 Corinthians 15 is a chapter that Paul talks a great deal about the resurrection. He is not only...he's actually going over and over and over this particular topic. And he's not directly talking to the Pharisees or Sadducees who also argued over the resurrection. And they had misunderstanding, I think, pretty much on both sides. They like to argue. They had misunderstanding about the resurrection. And yet I can say that he's not talking to them. He's talking to church members. He's talking to church members who have come out of the confusion that either the Jews might have had, or in Corinth, where the Gentile world did not know and had a great deal of dispute over whether or not the resurrection could even occur. How could that possibly happen?

Well, here in verse 20, 1 Corinthians 15, verse 20, it says, But now Christ is risen from the dead. I'll go back to some of these other verses later, but he says, Now Christ is risen from the dead. And he has become the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since man came death, by man also came the resurrection of the dead.

For as an Adam all die, so even in Jesus Christ all shall be made alive. And yet each one will be made alive in his own order. But Jesus Christ, Christ the first fruits. Afterward, those who are Christ, that is coming. He goes ahead to talk more about actually a number of resurrections. But here he clearly states that, well, you can argue all you want, as he actually goes through a little bit of discussion of that. But the fact is, Jesus is raised from the dead.

And see, for all of us, that's an extremely important, significant event. Because not only did he die for our sins, not only was he in the grave three days and three nights, he was resurrected, and he would ascend to the Father. And then he would interact with his church or others, as he didn't fit. That's what we see in the verses following the resurrection of Jesus. And as we go into even Paul's writing, you see how it was that he actually directly intervened in coming back and in talking to the disciples in many different ways. I'd like for us to look in Matthew 16. Matthew 16, just to...

This topic is one that we all should be able to explain or to understand. There is one particular key that we have to understand about it. And I know that you all are familiar with this, but I think it's good for us to go over it occasionally. Because you can read verses that don't look entirely clear. And even as we had mentioned yesterday in one of our messages, you have different accounts of the Gospels, and all of them are accounts of Jesus' life, accounts of his life and of his death, and his resurrection.

You have four different Gospel accounts, and all of them vary in one degree or another. But they are not in any way contradictory. They are all complementary when we understand. A couple of very key points regarding how it is that Jesus was in the grave for this period of time. Here in Matthew 16, it says in verse 21, from that time Jesus began to show to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from his elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and he would be killed and he would be raised again the third day.

This was information Jesus continued to try to pass on to the disciples. They would hear it. They would not compute. They would not stick. Their minds did not fully comprehend, or they began to see who they were with. But to fully understand exactly something like he was describing, that sounded pretty outlandish. Let's jump over to Matthew 20, verse 17.

Matthew 20, verse 17, he says in Jesus going up to Jerusalem. This was a little bit later. I think this was the third time that he predicts his death. He took the twelve disciples aside and wrote. He said to them, Behold, in verse 18, chapter 20, verse 18, behold, we are going up to Jerusalem.

And the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and they will deliver him to the Gentiles to mock and to scourge and to crucify.

And the third day he will rise again. Jesus mentioned this a number of times. You see actually this reference to a third day, or to three days, or different before or after the days. And yet you do have some definitive statements as well here. Matthew 28. So let's go to the latter part of Matthew. This is at the time when the resurrection of Jesus would occur. Matthew 28, verse 1. Now, after the Sabbath, after the weekly Sabbath of the week that Jesus died, after the weekly Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb.

We see other information in other Gospels, but you see that this was occurring very early in the morning. It was actually before dawn. While it was still dark in one of the other references. And that this is when they were coming. They were coming there. It was on a Sunday morning, yes. It was after the weekly Sabbath of that week. And it says in verse 2, And behold, there was a great earthquake, and an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came, and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat on it.

Now, there had been an earthquake earlier when Jesus died. An earthquake, at least the ground, shook. It would appear there were other things that we could tie in here, but I want to focus just on the time frame of the three days and three nights. But it says, an earthquake happened here that morning, and an angel descended from heaven, and came, and rolled back the stone from the door.

Now, did Jesus need to have the stone rolled back from the door to get out? Clearly not. That is not the case. That was not even the purpose of the stone being rolled away. Because clearly, at this point, Jesus was already gone. That's what we're going to read. It says, His countenance, talking about the angel, was like lightning. His clothing is white as snow. The guards... And so we'll talk about these guards a little bit later. This is an interesting part of the story. The guards, it says in verse 4, shook for fear of the angel.

They were watching here in this particular case. They saw something extraordinary happen. They felt the ground shake. They saw the stone roll away, whether the angel was pushing it or whatever it was. The guards shook with fear, and they became like dead men. They were scared to death. They had been put there to prevent any kind of activity around this tomb.

And so in verse 5, the angel answered and said to the women, Don't be afraid. I know that you seek Jesus, who was crucified, and yet He is not here. For He is risen. It wasn't that He was right then rising. It wasn't that we had to let Him out by me moving the door. He is already risen. This is proven by what Jesus Himself would say.

Come and see the place where the Lord lay. And then go quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead. And indeed, He is going before you in the Galilee. So this was an extraordinary event. He had already risen. He had already been resurrected the evening before. Because clearly, as He was in the grave for three days and three nights, and He was buried right before the sunset time on a given day, then that would have been when He would have been resurrected.

And we can see this even more clearly in Matthew 12. See, Matthew 12 is Jesus' declaration of the length of time that He would be in the grave. He says in verse 38 of Matthew 12, some of the scribes and Pharisees answered and said, Teacher, we want to see a sign from you. That's what they were always looking for. They were always wanting to see a miracle. They wanted to see a sign.

They wanted to be dazzled. That's what it appears the Jews, the Hebrew culture, respected. They liked that more than some of the other nations and what they happened to like. But in verse 39, the ancients said, You evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Now, He goes on and discusses other things regarding resurrections, but the only thing I'm focusing on is exactly what Jesus said. He said the only sign that will verify that I am the Messiah, that I'm the Son of God, that I have resumed the role that I have had for eternity, is that I'll be in the grave three days and three nights. And we can see clearly when it was that He was put into the grave, and so we can know that three days later, three days and nights later, 72 hours later, He would be resurrected from the dead.

Now, popular belief discards Jesus' direct statement. This is something that people argue about, and even religious people argue about, over and over and over again. And yet, Jesus made this statement about the length of time that He would be buried, and then about His resurrection, so that we would know the truth. To the truth is what Jesus verifies. It's what He is. He is, He says in John 14, I'm the way, I'm the truth, I'm the wife.

I'm the one who not only believes you to eternal life, I'm the only way you can have eternal life. And so, if we want to bank our lives on something, that better be Jesus Christ. And as He goes ahead to discuss this, I want to just read a little bit, because we have written, of course, on this subject, and we have booklets about it, and I know all of you have read them at one time, maybe not recently.

And the problem with the commonly accepted belief regarding the crucifixion and the resurrection is that there are not three days and not three nights between Friday afternoon and Sunday morning. That just doesn't happen. And when they try to say, this only means parts of three days and three nights, that pretty phrase actually means only parts of three days and parts of three nights, which many scholars claim.

There are scholars who try to, some way, verify that between Friday and Sunday, that that has to be three days and three nights. Whenever they try to do that, there's still a problem, because even though you can find parts of three days between Friday afternoon and Sunday morning, it is impossible to find parts of three nights. That just cannot happen.

And so, a key for our understanding, a key is actually what all of us have observed in the last two days. That key to understanding what Jesus said about being in the grave three days and three nights and when He was resurrected is that in order to understand the truth on this subject, it must be recognized that there were two Sabbath days during the week of Jesus' death. So that is a significant recognition. Many people do not want to recognize that. They do not want to realize that that's the case. And yet, clearly, even as we had an annual Sabbath yesterday, and we have an annual or weekly Sabbath today, we have two Sabbath days during this week. And last week, if we think back to last week, we had an annual Sabbath day. We had our Sabbath service. It occurred on Saturday last week. So did you have two? Well, no, we didn't right then. That particular week, we only had one. But as we see this week, there were two Sabbaths, one annual Sabbath and one weekly Sabbath. So when we study the chart, and I know most of you have this chart, but I will provide you a chart. I don't know that I have enough for everybody to have one, but if you can have at least one for a couple, I think that would be adequate. I know we have this chart that actually is a remarkably good chart. I'm going to let you go ahead and pass those out, and I'm going to then explain to you the uniqueness of this chart. I'm sorry to say that the reproducing of the chart wasn't as good as I wanted. It's not as clear as you would hope. But this particular graphic is a graphic that we have used on our Beyond Today program. It's one that's in our booklets. It's on the website. We're able to easily find this, or you can access that information if you wanted to do something more with it.

And yet, I said today it may be that we've got enough even to give more. We can give them all out. I don't really need them.

Some of you had special charts, because if you look at your page, you had the chart on one side, and some of you had the chart on the other side.

That's because I didn't know how to run the printer.

I was actually trying to do these at the library. I wasn't doing them at home.

I put it all together, and I knew how many I needed.

I started to get to the printer, and you have to put the money in, and you have to figure out how to get it to work. See if I can remember my username, see if I can remember my password.

Finally, get a printing, and the first two come out, and I said, uh-oh, that's not good. I'm already printing on both sides, which I don't want. I don't think that's necessary.

Although, those of you who have a dual copy there, you can hold it up for the person next to you, and they can see it on the back.

Although, it might be upside down.

Anyway, I just want to give you that chart. I'm not even really going to go over it in detail, because it's very self-explanatory. There are very specific directions that are given on the chart. There are, if you can read them, because I know they're very little fuzzy, tiny, scriptural reference to what is being referred to throughout that reading of that chart.

But I want us to just keep in mind, because the beginning of that chart shows when Jesus directed His disciples would meet together with Him in that particular week when He would have been crucified and buried and left in the grave during that week. He was going to, and I guess actually even it would be during that particular week, that He was resurrected, because it was toward the end of that weekly Sabbath day that He would be resurrected.

But it shows how He had met together with His disciples on Wednesday evening, I believe. Is that right? I'm going to look at the chart, too, because it's easy to be confused with it. Let's see. Yes, it is Wednesday evening. The evening part of Nisan 14, which would have been Wednesday here. And so He met with His disciples, of course, during the nighttime portion of the day. The day begins in the evening.

So throughout that evening, Wednesday night, Jesus would have met with His disciples. That's when He would have been betrayed and taken ultimately mistried. And then throughout the Passover day, during the nighttime portion, taken before Pilate, crucified, and then ultimately died, He would be buried there. Wednesday evening, He would be buried that evening, right before sunset. That is what your chart would refer. I'm not wanting to go through all of it. But I do want us to look at, in verification of what I mentioned about, truly, one of the most significant things in understanding the truth of Jesus being buried is recognizing the two Sabbath days.

The annual and then the weekly Sabbath that would have occurred during that particular year. Here in Luke 23, you have in Luke 23 a section that I want to refer to. Luke 23, behold, verse 50, this was after Jesus died. He died on the Passover day, the daylight portion of that day. Verse 50, behold, there was a man named Joseph, a council member, a good and just man. He had not consented to their council. Indeed, he was from Arimathea, a city of the Jews, and who himself was also waiting for the kingdom of God. So even though he was of a Jewish background, he knew something about the kingdom of God.

He was waiting for it. He didn't fully understand it clearly. And yet, he had not been in cahoots with the others who were wanting to put Jesus to death. In verse 52, the man went to Pilate, asking for the body of Jesus. And he took it down in verse 53 and wrapped it in linen and laid it in a tomb that was hewn out of a rock where no one had ever lain before.

So this was a new tomb. And in verse 54, that day, that day when Jesus was put to death, that day when a few hours later, Joseph would work toward burying him. That day was the preparation day. A preparation day, and it says, the Sabbath drew near. Now, that's why people often think, oh, that's got to be Friday. And yet, if we recognize that there was an annual Sabbath at that time, which actually would have been on Thursday, if we think of it in a regular week, then it becomes much more clear.

The day when Jesus was going through this with his disciples and he was being crucified and he was being buried, was a preparation day before the annual Sabbath, which would be the first day of the days of Unleavened Breath, as we celebrate even today.

We need to hold a place here and jump over to John 19, because that is another very clear verse about this same thing. It says in verse 30, Jesus is dying. And in verse 31, John 19, verse 31, Therefore, because it was the preparation day, that the body should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath, again, the annual Sabbath, before that Sabbath was a high day. It was not a regular Sabbath, not a weekly Sabbath, not one that they would have every week, but it was an annual Sabbath. That Sabbath was a high day in the Jews-ass pilot, that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away. And so, you see not only a reference in Luke, but also in John, and even more clearly in John, as to that this was a special high Sabbath day.

That was, you know, they were in the preparation day leading up to that high Sabbath. So, if we go back to Luke 23 again, we read verse 54, that day was the preparation, and the Sabbath grew near, the annual Sabbath was drawing near, and the woman who had come with him from Galilee followed after, and they observed the tomb and how his body was laid, and when they returned and prepared spices and fragrant oils.

Now, they would not have been doing that on the high Sabbath day, the day that would follow. They would have been doing that the next day, which would have been Friday.

So, they could have on Friday prepared, repurchased, and prepared spices and oils, and then they rested on the Sabbath, again the weekly Sabbath, according to the commandment. And so, this is, in many ways, verse 54 through 56, is part of why people misunderstand. If they do not recognize that one of these is referring to the annual Sabbath and one to the weekly Sabbath, then you could see how that could easily be misunderstood.

And, of course, this verse goes on into chapter 24, on the first day of the week, early in the morning, a certain woman would go into the tomb with the spices they had prepared. This gives you a pretty clear time frame, and the chart is very clear about that as well. But, it is important to recognize just how it is that the annual and weekly Sabbath are designated here.

I'd like for us to go to John chapter 20, because in John chapter 20, you see an account, and this ties together even more so, not so much with the timing, because in a sense we've already gone through that. But John 20 deals with the significance, the significance of what was happening as Jesus was in the grave and then resurrected from the dead.

Here in John chapter 20, verse 1, on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. Now, other of the accounts say they came there and they saw the angel or they had an earthquake. This appears to be somewhat of a summary of that.

At least you did see. It doesn't give you all the details, but it does give us an overview. You saw that the stone had been taken away, and so she ran, came to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, which would be John, and said to them, they have taken away the Lord out of the tomb. We don't know where they've laid him. And Peter therefore went out, and John went with him, and they were going to the tomb, and they ran together, and John outran Peter.

So I guess you would say John won the 400-yard dash, 400-meter relay, or it wouldn't have been a relay, 400-meter run. He beat Peter there. I think you probably can surmise John might have been a little younger than Peter. John obviously lived a lot longer than Peter did.

But it says in verse 5, he stooped down and looked in. This was Peter. He saw the linen cloth lying there, yet he did not— Oh, excuse me. That was John. John stooped down in verse 5 and looked in, and he saw the linen cloth, yet he didn't go in. He kind of held back a little, waited until Peter got his wind. And then Peter came in verse 6, following him, went into the tomb, and he saw the linen cloth lying there, too.

And in verse 7, he saw the cloth and the handkerchief that had been around his head, not lying with the linen cloth, but folded together in a place by itself. And then in verse 8, it says John, the other disciple who came to the tomb first, he also went into the tomb. He saw what it was that Peter saw. He put things together. It was a lightbulb moment for John.

He began to not only know who it was that they had been following for several years now, that they had been with and been trained and been encouraged. This was the Son of God. But this Son of God was telling us, He's going to come. He's going to be in Jerusalem. He's going to be crucified. And He's going to, as He directs, He's going to be resurrected from the dead. And it says, John not only went in and saw the tomb, or came in the tomb and went in, he saw and he believed.

See, this was a stunning moment for John to fully comprehend that the Son of God is now returned to His glorified state. The Son of God is now resurrected from the dead.

And it says, as yet they did not know the Scripture that He must rise again from the dead. And then the disciples went away again to their own homes. So they hadn't fully comprehended it, even though they'd been told it numerous times. But what it says in verse 9 is something that should be significant to all of us.

When we come to fully believe in God, in the existence of God, in the fact that God is able to help us, He's able to intervene in our lives, He's able, and He does even offer through Jesus Christ, eternal life.

Well, that's a step in our progression to being a part of the family of God. John came to believe who Jesus was. I want to go back to Matthew 27.

27 and 28, you've got a little different side of this story. And it's one that seems to be very unusual.

Here in chapter 27 of Matthew, in verse 62, this again is after Jesus had been buried. He had been buried the night before. But it says in verse 62, on the next day.

So when was that? Well, that was on Thursday. Thursday, the day of the high Sabbath, the day of the first day of the days of Unleavened Bread.

On the next day, which followed the day of preparation, and the day of preparation was when it was that Jesus was crucified and then buried. But you see the chief priests and Pharisees, not really keeping the days of Unleavened Bread very well, they're going to go consort with Pilate. And so they came to Pilate and said in verse 63, so we remember that while He was still alive, the seper said, after three days, I'm going to rise.

They came to Pilate and had to bring up this very important issue that, well, we want to secure the scene. We want to put police tape around the tomb. We want guards standing there. We want protection. That's what they were wanting, of course. Verse 64, they asked Him, command that the tomb be made secure until the third day.

The disciples come by night and steal Him away and say to the people, He's risen from the dead. And so the last deception is worse than the first. Pilate said, well, you have a guard. So he gave them, I'm not sure exactly the number of guards that would have been made up this unit. He says, you have the guard.

Go your way. Make it as secure as you know how. And so they went and they made the tomb secure, sealing the stone and setting the guard. So this was done as we see as Jesus was put into the tomb the night before. The next day they come to Pilate, oh, we need to put some guards out there so that He won't be misrepresented in any way.

And if we drop down in Chapter 28, we see here the description of the next of the morning that would be of Sunday morning following the weekly Sabbath. You see in verse 11, after it was very clear Sunday morning when they came to the tomb, Jesus was not there. He had already risen. But in verse 11, while they were going, behold, some of the guards came into the city. This is while the disciples were going, some of the guards came into the city.

And they reported to the chief priest all the things that had happened. And when they had dissembled with the elders, they took counsel. They gave a large sum of money to the soldiers. And saying, tell others, tell them His disciples came at night and stole them away while we were asleep. So even they, by the time we think He disappeared sometime in the night. See, actually, the guards had no clue.

Whenever you realize what happened, that Jesus went into the tomb right at sunset at Wednesday evening, and that three days and three nights later, He was resurrected. He didn't need to move the door. He didn't need to move the rock. You could see, certainly later on, from the description we have, Jesus could then come and go. He was not restricted in any fashion. He would later meet with His disciples numerous times.

He would talk with groups of people. He would eat bread and fish. He must have been a good cook. I imagine He can grow better than me. And so He's able to do anything. He can appear, He can disappear. And clearly, this is what happened whenever He was resurrected from the dead.

Because you see, even in the descriptions that you have the next day, when He began to appear to some of the women, and later He would later appear to His disciples, He had the ability of God. He was able. And He was able to ascend to the throne of God, and then return to the earth in a moment's time.

But here it says that these guards were being bribed. His disciples came at night, or this is what you're supposed to say, the disciples came at night and stole them away while we were asleep. That was kind of self-incriminating, if they were going to say, we dozed off, and we don't know what happened. I doubt that that was going to go over well. And so He said, if it comes to the governor's ears, we'll appease Him, and we'll make you secure.

And so they took the money, and they did as they were instructed, and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews to this day. So what a buffooned outfit of guards to be there and to not have a clue when Jesus was resurrected. See, we know when Jesus was resurrected because we know what He said. He said that He would be resurrected at that given point. And it is fabulous to be able to put that together. You do see all of the verses. You see, all of them come together whenever you read the different accounts. As we said, they vary. They do not contradict. They do complement. It in essence gives us a full picture of what it is.

Whenever Jesus was resurrected, He simply was no longer in the tomb. He was no longer. He could go through the walls. He could go through the rocks. He didn't have to roll away the rock. Like I said, the angel here in Matthew 28, it says in verse 2, The great earthquake and the angel came and rolled back the stone. That was after the fact. That was not at the time when Jesus was resurrected. He was resurrected the evening before, which would have been exactly the time.

And of course, you read in Luke 24. This is at the very end of the book of Luke. You see how that after Jesus had been resurrected, you see that He met a couple of disciples on the road to Emma's here in chapter 24. It says in verse 15, They conversed and reasoned that Jesus Himself drew near and went with them. So He could appear just as a regular man if He wanted to. And it says, their eyes will be strange so they didn't know who He was.

And He said in verse 17, What kind of conversation is this that you're having? One with another as you walk and you're so sad. You're so depressed. They were obviously moved by what they had been talking about. And one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered and said, Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem? And have you not known the things that happened here in these days?

They were just appalled. They were not knowing what to think. And He said to them, What things have been happening? And they said in verse 19, The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, Who is a prophet, mighty indeed, and word before God in all the people, And how the high per chief priest and rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death and crucified. But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel indeed. Besides all of this, today's the third day since these things happened. Yes, and certain women of the company had arrived at the tomb, And they astonished Jesus.

When they did not find His body, They came saying that they'd seen a vision of angels who said He was alive. And certain of these who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said.

But He did not find. See, that was a tremendous declaration from Jesus to being able to verify. Of course, you read the remainder of this chapter, And you see that Jesus was, in verse 31, going to open their eyes. He was going to open their eyes to understand the Scripture and to understand who He was, And how that, in essence, with this act, He had fulfilled what the wave sheep offering indicated that He was to be the first of the first fruits. That God would continue to work with a spiritual harvest, And first fruits would make up the first part of that, But Jesus would always be the very first, And then others would be added later on in the greater harvest. You see Paul summarizing this if we go back here in conclusion to 1 Corinthians 15. It's fabulous for all of us because our hope, our hope of eternal life, our hope of the resurrection, Is based on Jesus being resurrected. This is what Paul argues throughout this chapter of 1 Corinthians 15. He says in verse 3, I delivered to you first of all that which I received that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, That He was buried, that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, And that He had seen, He was seen by Cephas, by Peter, and then by the twelve, And after that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, Of whom the greater part remained of the present, but some had died. I don't know of other reference to that. I don't know who those five hundred people would have been. But he said a lot of them are still alive. A lot of them know what happened. He said after that He was seen in verse 7 by James, and then by all the apostles, And last of all He was seen by me, as one born out of due time. Paul had been, as we would read in Acts 9, Paul had been interacted with Jesus Christ, Initially with his conversion, and then later on he'd been trained, As he describes in Galatians several years, three years, That he had been trained by Jesus Christ in Arabia. And so Paul makes mention of this, and in verse 12, Since he's wanting to help them fully understand how important the resurrection of Jesus is, And how connected that is to us. In verse 12, if Christ is preached that He has not been raised from the dead, How do some among you say that there's no resurrection of the dead? See, clearly they had a misunderstanding. Some thought there's no resurrection of the held. How doomed would you feel if you don't believe in a resurrection of the dead? But he says in verse answer to that, if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Jesus is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is vain, and your faith is also vain. See, we don't have a reason to worship God if there is no resurrection of the dead. That is extremely important, yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, Because we have testified of God that He raised up Jesus, whom He did not raise up, if in fact the dead don't rise. See, He was kind of going over and over this. For He says, if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen, and Christ is not risen, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins. And so, He was wanting to make a point with this, and then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable, most pitiable.

We don't have hope simply in this life. We have hope of life to come, of life that comes through Jesus Christ. He says He is the way, He is the truth, He is the life, He is the one who offers us eternal life. And then He said, and of course in verse 20, which we read earlier, Now Christ is, but now Christ is risen from the dead, and He has become the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by man also came the resurrection of the dead, for as an Adam will die, even so, Jesus Christ, in Jesus Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in His own order, Christ the first fruits, and afterwards those of Christ had His coming. He goes ahead and describes other resurrections that are not our purpose today, but simply to focus on how important it was, what the significance was of Jesus telling the truth, being in the grave three days and three nights, being resurrected, late weekly Sabbath afternoon, being gone long before the guards could figure out what was going on the next day, but long before any of the disciples or any of the women who would come to the tomb would, you know, they would have some interaction and they would learn more about who He was, but the important thing was that He had been resurrected from the dead. So we can be very thankful at His words because He said that's what's going to happen. He said He predicted what would happen beforehand. He fulfilled it, and He, of course, confirms that to us. He was resurrected, as He said, and because of Him, because of His life now living in us, then we too can have the hope of the resurrection, a hope of the resurrection that for all of us, we hope to be resurrected to eternal life. If we die before Jesus returns, we will at His return be resurrected, and we would hope that would be to eternal life. We want to verify that by making our calling and our election sure. We have a privilege and a blessing of knowing the truth of God in this age. And, brethren, I am grateful for the Holy Days that continually remind us of what it is God's purpose is, but it's important for all of us to be motivated. It's important for us to be motivated by the Word of God and to have truly the hope that clearly is written about regarding not only Jesus' resurrection, but ultimately our resurrection to eternal life. Thank you, Mr. Dobson.