He Is Risen: Evidences of the Resurrection

a happy resurrection day my name is Tim Chaffee and we're going to be talking about the most important events that I've ever occurred on this planet the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus Christ I'm the Content Manager for the attractions division at Answers in Genesis that means I have the unique privilege to work with our incredible design team as we develop exhibit at the Creation Museum and at the Ark Encounter and I have the the privilege of heading up the content for those so the signs that you read when you walk through there either I wrote those or oversaw the writing of those and relied on our experts in various areas to develop that content I love what I get to do and then I get to come out and talk about my favorite subject to talk about and that's the resurrection of Jesus Christ so in this presentation what we're going to do is look at the importance of the resurrection and we're also going to look at some of the the claims that people have made over the last 2,000 years trying to explain away the evidence for the resurrection but and we're going to look at some of the resurrected the evidence for the resurrection as well so we're going to go through that over the course of the next hour but before we do I got to tell you about this man who traveled to Israel and he and his wife went there and in her mother so his mother-in-law came along as well and they were going through all these different historical places just having a wonderful time there and just learning so much rich history but tragically one night while they were in the hotel the mother-in-law passed away in her sleep and they didn't know what to do I mean you're here in a foreign country and they're wondering you know how can we handle this so they talked to the funeral home directory and said you know you got a couple of options here we can take care of everything here prepare the body send her back to the United States but it's gonna cost a lot of money you know for preparation for you know shipping customs everything like that so it's gonna cost a lot of money but the other option is she can have the honor of being buried right here in this land in the Land of Israel and the Holy Land where there's so much rich history and everything and the guy thought about it for a second he said you know I heard about this guy once they buried him here and he came back to life and I just can't take that chance I'm kidding I don't have a problem with mothers-in-law my wife has a great one and so does my son-in-law for the record for he was the greatest leader of all people of all time he was the lord of the new humanity he was the savior of the world those words were written about you would think Jesus Christ now actually they're written in memory of Vladimir Lenin the murderous brutal dictator who slaughtered millions of his own people in fact you can visit Moscow and you can go to Red Square and you can go right there to his tomb and you can stand behind hundreds of schoolchildren waiting to get in and you can once you finally get in you can see his body lying in state and next to that or you know it keeps them cost him a lot of money every year to keep that updated to make it make sure it looked presentable you can see that sign but take a look at the wording he was he was he was everything's past tense what if we were to change those to present tense for he is the greatest leader of all people of all time he is the Lord of the new humanity and we'll use that in a very different way than what they would he is the savior of the world now who are we talking about now we would be talking about Jesus Christ why can we speak of him and with the present tense because he is alive because he conquered death the resurrection is central to the Christian faith and the fact in Paul in 1st Corinthians chapter 15 Paul said now if Christ is preached that he has been raised from the dead how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the Dead but if there is no resurrection of the dead then Christ is not risen and if Christ is not risen then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty yes and we are found false witnesses of God because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ whom he did not raise up if in fact the dead do not rise for if the dead do not rise then Christ is not risen and if Christ is not risen your faith is futile you were still in your sins then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished if in this life only we have hope in Christ we are of all men the most pitiable so how important is the resurrection of the Christian faith well just a few things in this passage if Jesus did not rise our preaching is empty our faith is empty we are false witnesses and we are still in our sins why because jesus said he's going to rise from the dead and if he didn't rise from the dead that would make him a liar meaning he could not die on the cross for our sins he would be dying for his own sin and we would have no salvation meaning we would suffer for our own sins eternally there would be no forgiveness the dead are gone we would never see our loved ones again and we are to be pitied more than anyone because we're living our lives according to a standard that it's based on a lie if Jesus did not rise so how important is the resurrection it's everything to the Christian faith without it there is no Christianity in fact Paul said it's part of the gospel message moreover brethren I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you for I delivered to you first of all that which I also received that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures did you notice the content of the Gospel message I'm not saying you know how we should respond to that I'm not saying all the implications of that I'm saying the content of the message that was preached the sacrificial death of ker of Christ the burial and his resurrection that's the content of the Gospel message and sadly too often people forget to mention the resurrection when attempting us here at the gospel and of course God can still use our shortcomings and everything but let's make sure as we share the gospel with others we are telling them the good news it's not just that Jesus died for our sins that is great news but it's also that he conquered death and he'll raise us as well we can have life in his name the resurrection was prophesied both in the Old Testament and also in the new Jesus himself said that he would rise from the dead jesus answered and said to them destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up then the Jews said it's taken 46 years to build this temple you're gonna raise it up in three days well John tells us that Jesus was speaking of a temple of his body therefore when he had risen from the dead his disciples remembered that he had said this to them and they believed the scriptures and the word which Jesus had said now you might say well that's a little bit vague you know Jesus said destroy this temple and I'm afraid can you really believe that he was talking about his body well I do because the Bible tells us that's what he was and in fact later on at one of his trials this is what somebody said against him that he would tear down the temple and raise it up in three days so they believe that but Jesus also made it very clear in other statements how about this one in Matthew chapter 20 behold we are going up to Jerusalem and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes and they will condemn him to and deliver him to the Gentiles to mock and to scourge and to crucify and the third day He will rise again is that vague no that's like a play-by-play account of everything that's going to happen and that's exactly what did happen she just knew what was going to happen and he told his disciples what was going to happen in fact what did Jesus say would be the sign that he would give the unbelieving world you know when some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus a teacher we want to see a sign from you what did Jesus say that he say an evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign and no sign will be given to it right period end of sentence or maybe we should keep on reading because what's the rest of it say except for the sign of the prophet Jonah for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth why is Jesus going to being in the grave only for three days and three nights because he's going to rise from the dead he says the sign I will give to this evil and adulterous generation is the resurrection so not only is it central to our faith that's also the sign jesus said he's going to give to this world that he really is who he claimed to be the Bible tells us that Jesus presented himself alive or showed himself alive by many infallible proofs after he rose from the dead Luke tells us that in acts 1:3 to present himself alive by many infallible proofs what is an infallible proof well it's a proof that is not fallible as a proof that cannot be overcome it's that that it's undeniably true I mean it that it happened what would it take to convince you that somebody you knew before that the and you knew that they had died what would it take to convince you that they were alive again what would be an infallible proof for you that that person was alive again maybe seeing them but not really far away in the distance you got to see him close up to make sure it's really them right how about eating with them or drinking with them Watson drinks at or how about you touch them okay you listen to him talk you you learn from him you know what that's what Jesus did in all in those post-resurrection appearances the Gospels record all of those things he ate with him he drank with them he you know people are hung on to they they walked with him they talked with him they saw him all those things to demonstrate that this wasn't just some phantom this wasn't a ghost this is Jesus raised from the dead in there he is in fact in first Corinthians 15 a passage we were looking at earlier says that Jesus was seen by Cephas this is a name for Peter and then by the twelve after that he was seen by were five hundred brethren at once of whom the greater part remain to the present but some have fallen asleep what's he saying but more than five hundred people saw him alive at the same time and most of them are still alive so if you don't believe me track down one of these people they'll tell you after that he was seen by James then by all the apostles then last of all he was seen by me also as by one born out of due time the Gospels are unanimous that Jesus rose from the dead we should expect this but this is how each of the Gospels and the last chapter in each gospel and then the last two chapters in John's Gospel all about the post resurrection appearances he is not here for he has risen as he said Matthew 26 and Mark He is risen he is not here in Luke 24 why do you seek the living among the dead he is not here but his risen and then the gospel Johnny says this is now the third time Jesus showed himself to his disciples after he was raised from the dead so each of the Gospels hinge on whether or not Jesus rose from the dead if he didn't if he didn't we can say that the Gospels are not reliable but it's not just the Gospels in fact it's the entire New Testament also the Old Testament because the Old Testament prophesized that he would rise that he'd be in the grave just for a short time and that he would live again after his death but the whole New Testament focuses on the resurrection in fact I would challenge you the next time you read through the New Testament especially from Acts onward every time you see something about Jesus being raised from the dead or that he's risen or the resurrection anything about the resurrection of Jesus Christ underlined and are highlighted you're gonna be stunned at how frequently it appears it is all over the place in fact there's times where it seems like Paul can't even write a sentence about Jesus without saying whom God raised from the dead it's all over the place it was always on the forefront of their mind in fact in the book of Acts every single time there's a sermon recorded given by one of the Apostles the central focus of that message every time without fail is the resurrection of Jesus Christ in 1st Corinthians 15 of chapter we've already been looking at 58 verses all about the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ and what that means for us in the future those who are believers we're also we're going to be raised bodily this mortal body will put on immortality this corruptible body will put on incorruptible 'ti because of what Jesus has done first thessalonians tells us this is that it's a reason for comfort and hope those who have who have died before if they were believers and we are we're gonna get to see them again we don't grieve like those who have no hope in Romans he says that if that because God raised Jesus up he's also going to give life to our mortal bodies we're also going to be raised if we believe in him Hebrews only mentions the resurrection specifically one time but the whole book is about how he is our great high priest who is always at the right hand of God who is interceding for us well how can he be doing that if he was still in the grave so the whole book is contingent upon Jesus being raised from the dead and in the book of Revelation two different times Jesus refers to himself as the one who had lived and then had died and then was alive forevermore he refers to himself as the resurrected one it's all over the place in the New Testament so let's look at some of the evidence we have for this event the resurrection of Jesus Christ one of the the strongest one is found in the the lives of the disciples after the event what happened to the disciples the night that Jesus was arrested remember in the Garden of Gethsemane they fled they ran away in fear and that's understandable we probably would too if we were there all except for John who stayed pretty close to the preceeding and Peter who tried to stay pretty close and we'll talk about Peter in just a little bit but these men went from running away in fear being a bunch of cowards that night to being willing to give their lives for this belief that Jesus died in the cross and then rose from the dead and wherever they went that's what they were proclaiming it didn't matter what people did to him and there are a lot of times that Christians will try to defend the resurrection they'll say like this well nobody would die for a lie and that's not quite the right way to say it because you know what people will die for a lie in fact a lot of people have died for a lie think back it's almost 20 years now it's hard to believe but a September 11 2001 and those hijackers took over those planes and flew them into buildings and that those hijackers died for a lie and people would look at the disciple and say well these people you know they're they're willing they would die for a lie as well but here's here's a huge difference fact there's two huge differences here between what the disciples were willing to do and what those terrorists did on September September 11th one those those terrorists were trying to take as many people with them as they could they were trying to kill as many people as possible the disciples out of love and out of gratitude for what Christ had done for them went wherever they could to tell people that they could be forgiven that they got to have eternal life through a belief in Jesus Christ through faith in Christ and it didn't matter what you did to them so they were willing to suffer loss of limb or to die for that Proclamation that's very different than the motivation of those hijackers and there's another huge difference that we have to understand here the disciples were in a position to know whether or not their beliefs were true you see what we really need to say is people will not die for what they know to be a lie okay the disciples knew whether or not their beliefs were true they knew did we really see Jesus alive from the dead again and every single one of them as far as church history tells us we were willing to go to their grave we're willing to be martyred except for John who apparently was not were they were willing to be martyred for that belief James the brother of John act 12 tells us he was killed by Herod with the sword church tradition tells us that the other recruits if I'd stoned impaled flayed which means skinned alive beheaded or hung upside down by iron hooks through the ankles let me ask you a question if you were one of these disciples and something that you made up the whole idea of the resurrection if it was just made up as a lot of skeptics say that these early church leaders got together because they say for a fame or for power or for money whatever it was which none of those things were there for them at that point all it was is just persecution and death and ridicule mockery wherever they went and it also meant loss of family loss of jobs all those things they were willing to give up for this belief but if you were making this up and they said okay we're going to behead you don't you think at some point you would kind of spill the beans any guys I'd rather not have that happen we made the whole thing up and every single one of them was willing to endure persecution and death for their belief because they knew Jesus had died on the cross and then he rose from the dead coward they went from cowards tomorrow's Liars don't make good martyrs how about Simon Peter we mentioned him a little bit ago he went from remember being so bold where the night Jesus was arrested he pulled out a sword and he tried to hack it the guy who one of the guys trying to arrest Jesus ends up hacking off his ear and he probably wasn't just going for the ear he's probably going for the whole head and then jesus heals the man but that same guy Peter who when he's next to Jesus is so bold and brave and even told Jesus earlier that day I'll never deny you and Jesus says no you're gonna die me three times before the rooster crows before the next morning you're gonna die me three times and then Peter tries to follow the procession he tries to follow what's going on with Jesus and when he goes through this doorway there's a servant girl says you're one of his followers aren't you oh no not me what are you talking about there's one then he sees people warming themselves by the fire no yeah we recognized your absent you're one of his followers no I don't know I don't know what you're talking about somebody else says yeah you're one of his followers and it says that he called down curses on and said and said I don't know the man and then the rooster crowed just like Jesus said it would and Peter ran away in shame because he had just denied Jesus three times even though he had promised earlier that night that he never would do that and yet where do we find Peter seven weeks later he stands up on the day of Pentecost in front of of his fellow Jews and gives the least seeker-sensitive message of all time well think about what do I mean by that would be the Jews had been looking forward to their Messiah for centuries and Peter stands up and says many of Israel hear these words Jesus of Nazareth you have taken by lawless hands have crucified and put to death whom God raised up having loosed the pains of death and he goes on for the next eight verses or so talking about the resurrection and how it was prophesied in the Old Testament but he says that we've been waiting for our Messiah but guess what he just came and you just killed him can you imagine how bold Peter had to be to make those claims because he had to unknown at any point the crowd could have turned on him and stoned him were or let him wait to be crucified whatever it was the guy who was afraid to confess Jesus to a servant girl suddenly is bold enough to do this what happened well the Bible tells us they were filled with the Holy Spirit and Peter knew Jesus had died and he saw him alive again and there was nothing that was going to prevent him from proclaiming that truth in fact the existence of the church today is a great testament to the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ because where did it begin while I just talked about it on the day of Pentecost in Jerusalem when Peter stands up and gives that message and 3,000 people believe that day but if Jesus didn't really rise from the dead if his body was still there in the tomb anybody in that crowd could have said hey Peter you're talking about Jesus being raised from the dead come here let's take a little walk down here let's go outside the city and see that that tomb right there let's roll a wood stone we got enough people to do this there's Jesus now sit down and stop filling the city with your lives but nobody could do that why because his body wasn't in the tomb because he rose from the dead on the third day just like he said he would the enemies could have easily produced the body but they didn't the church was founded unbelief and the risen Savior in fact the one place Christian he should not have ever been able to start if it was fake is Jerusalem itself and yet that's the very place where it started there is no hope and no salvation in our message without the resurrection so the fact that the church exists today is a great testament to the reality of the resurrection and sometimes skeptics will say well you know what Jesus only appear to his own followers and sometimes I've heard Christians say that too and I know that's not true now most of the people he appeared to were his followers but not all of them how about this guy James the half-brother of Jesus he's the son of Mary and Joseph it tells us that he rejected Christ prior to the crucifixion in John 7 5 it says for even his brothers did not believe in him and in mark chapter 3 it goes even further it says that his family tried to prevent him from speaking and said that he was out of his mind can you imagine having those words written about you in Scripture saying Jesus is out of his mind but this is what his family is saying and when Jesus is on the cross who does he entrust the care of his mother to not to one of his siblings but to John who was one of his disciples because his brothers didn't believe at that point but think about it for a minute it would be kind of tough if you were one of his brothers right if suddenly Jesus goes out and said I'm the son of God I'm the Messiah that would be difficult to take one in it but don't you think that one of those guys one of his his half-brothers don't you think they could have said hey mom you hear what Jesus is saying is there anything to this don't you think she could have sat them down and said good let me tell you about what happened before he was born how this angel came he visited me and before your dad and I were ever together all of these things don't you think she could have set the record straight but again that would still be tough to take if you were if you were one of his half-brothers but before the day of Pentecost we find James in the Upper Room with the rest of the disciples something had happened to him and in the end in Galatians chapter 2 one of the earliest books in the New Testament to be written he's called a pillar of the church in Acts chapter 15 it was called the Jerusalem Council where you get all these church leaders together you've got Peter and Paul you've got some of the biggest names there who's the guy who kind of stands up and takes charge at the end this is James and then according to three different historians he died a martyr's death and there's a little bit of disagreement about how he died one of them says that he was thrown off the temple top the other one says that he was beaten to death and the third one says no actually both things are true he was thrown off the temple but he it didn't kill him it just broke his legs and he got to his knees I was praying for the mob that had done that to him and somebody came up and beat her to death with a Club what happened to James somebody who did not believe in Jesus prior to Christ's death and then suddenly within seven weeks he's a believer to the point that he's willing to die a martyr's death well first Corinthians 15 tells us after that he was seen by James so Jesus appeared to him and James knew that you know what my half-brother really is who he claimed to be and he went around proclaiming that how about this guy maybe Saul of Tarsus you might have heard of where we might know him as the Apostle Paul he went from being the church's greatest persecutor to I think the greatest Christian who's ever lived now some people want to debate that but if you want to find somebody else who wrote thirteen books of the New Testament and we'll talk now consider this here's a guy who an act 9 wanted says he was still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord in acts 22 he says I persecuted this way to the death the way is an early name for the church he persecuted them to the death Paul put Christians to death he says in acts 26 10 and when they were put to death I cast my vote against them and I punished them often in every synagogue and I compelled them to blaspheme this is not a nice guy this is somebody who is so zealous for his faith that he's willing to put Christians to death because he thinks that they're blaspheming by claiming that Jesus Christ is God that Jesus is the Christ and that he's God and so here he is trying to put Christian death and he's on his way to Damascus to do some more to throw more Christians in jail and I like to say that he saw the light because Jesus appeared to him and Paul's life did a complete 180 he went from persecuting the church as much as he could to living every moment to spread the good news of Jesus Christ in fact in second Corinthians and he still had several years of ministry after this he wrote this about some of the trials that he endured for the sake of Christ he said he was in Labor's more abundant in prisons more frequently five times he had received 40 stripes - one if you've seen the movie The Passion of the Christ you know what flogging is because you'll never forget it if you've watched that movie I'm gonna saying that you have to go and watch it it's very difficult to see it's very graphic very gory I think it's important for us to understand the what Jesus endured for us and some of the the physical torment that he endured of course no movie could ever capture the emotional or the spiritual torment that he went through as well you know he's completely innocent yet he's getting all the sins of the world laid on him but this movie does a pretty powerful job of showing the physical beatings that went he went through in that flogging scene you'll remember Paul got that five times can you even imagine it's hard to imagine being struck by that one time and yet Paul got 39 stripes five different times three times he was beaten by rods he was stoned once left for dead he was shipwrecked and again still many more years of a service after this how many more trials did he endure for the sake of Christ why would he go through that I mean can you imagine being Paul traveling companion you go into a town let's say you're Timothy or Silas or Barba's you go into a town and you start preaching in their synagogues and for the first couple weeks it's it's going okay okay you're getting some peer convincing some people persuading them that Jesus really is the promised Messiah and yet most people aren't having and pretty soon they throw you out of the synagogue so you go to the Gentiles and that was his custom and we're told in acts 17 in acts 18 and so you go to the Gentiles and you start leading a few people of Lord and pretty soon the people who reject you too before come along and they start this up rise and they caused this riot or wherever they take you outside the city and they stone you leave you for dead and then a few hours later you kind of come to your senses you look at Timothy or who's over there with you and say hey let's go to the next town and do it again that was Paul's life why well he tells us actually in Philippians chapter 3 he says this I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in him that I may know him and the power of his what's that word right there his resurrection if by any means I may attain to the resurrection of the Dead I saw Jesus alive and I cannot wait to see him again so do whatever you want to me because if you kill me that's the best thing that can happen for me to live is Christ to die is gain he couldn't wait to be back with his lord and that was Paul's life what happened to this guy who wanted to wipe out Christianity and suddenly wanted to share it with every single person he met the risen Lord there is no other explanation that makes sense so Paul's life of the powertest powerful testament to the resurrection and how about the straight forward reporting that we get in the gospels you know a lot of times the skeptics will say things like well these guys were just you know it's written hundreds of years later or many many decades later after this legendary development and yet we don't have anything like that in the Gospels you know you do see that in the gospel of Peter and some of you might be flipping through your Bibles right now that gospel Peter where's that well you don't have it you're in your Bible and that's a good thing it wasn't written by Peter okay there's something that came along at least a hundred years later and here's what it says on that first Easter morning that first resurrection morning so that the two angels come down they roll away the stone they go into the tomb that's tough are so good right and then they come out of the tomb and Jesus is following them and their heads stretched all the way up into the clouds jesus said stretches up even higher than the angels and then the cross comes out of the tomb and a voice booms from heaven and says if you proclaimed the message to those who sleep and the Cross says yes that is legendary development that is embellishment that's the kind of stuff you get after hundreds of years the Gospels know nothing of that it's just straightforward reporting in fact they tell us things that that really aren't all that helpful if you think about if you're trying to if you're making this up okay if you're the early disciples and you're trying to make up this this religious belief which is what a lot of people accuse them of doing if you're saying we got a we got to make up this whole idea of the Resurrection I know who gets to see him first you know again if you're making up who gets to see him first Peter he's like one of the one of the leading disciples maybe John or wait if you're making it up why not Pilate or better yet the high priest no no people could check that out right away because you're in Jerusalem I know how about Rome how about Caeser I mean again you're making up nobody gonna be able to check on I didn't have cellphones at the time to call her hey did Jesus appear to see they don't have that so why not make something up like that who did they choose who's the first person that gets to see Jesus what are the Gospels tells Mary Magdalene the last person on earth you would ever pick if you were making this up why well first of all she's a woman sorry ladies but at that time a woman's testimony was not considered valid in that culture so you want to pick a woman if you were making it up and let alone you would never pick a woman that Jesus cast seven demons out of she is the least likely person to a pick so why did the Gospels tell us that Mary Magdalene was the first to see him because she was there's no other explanation for that and by the way it also includes other details like that that seemed to disagree at first but as you put everything together you see that they fit together nicely like how many women went to the tomb that morning if you read Matthew Mark and Luke and John they all mentioned different numbers now none of them are saying there were only three and that's all the people who went to the tomb if anybody says there were more than that or less than that they're lying they don't say that they just mentioned so Matthew Mark mentioned three Luke mentions names three and then says and the other women so there's at least five I went to the tomb that morning and John really only speaks about Mary Magdalene but when she goes to the tomb and sees that the stone is rolled away she takes off and reports to Peter and John says they've taken away the body of our Lord we don't know where they've laid him so she acknowledges that there was more than one that went to the tomb the Gospels are actually in harmony on that just they are an other things but a lot of times people will point to those things and say well you can't trust the Bible because these the so-called contradiction it's not a contradiction so they fit together just fine if they were in collusion if these guys are making up their stories they're gonna get together and say let's make sure we all say the same thing but they weren't doing that because they're just giving you the reports either eyewitness reports for some of them and the other ones the things that they learn from the eyewitnesses and how about the empty tomb as evidence for the resurrection any theory that has proposed to deny the resurrection must account for the empty tomb even Christ's enemies at that time it mitad the tomb was empty which is a pretty strong argument when it comes to historical studies it's one thing if you tell if you say something about yourself or people who are loyal to you say something about you it's an entirely it's entirely different thing if your enemy says those same things about you and in this case they're admitting the tomb was empty because they're trying to come up with an explanation to say how the tomb was empty and we'll look at that one at the end of our time here this morning or this afternoon wherever you happen to be and this empty tomb separates Jesus from every one else every other religious leader that has ever been they don't make the claim that they're gonna rise from the dead why because they don't have the power to rise from the dead they died and they stayed there but we have other evidences as well some people will say well so far everything you've told me it's just right out of the Bible I don't believe the Bible well so what I I do in the Bible is the Word of God so if it tells us that Jesus rose from the dead he rose from the dead okay but we can look at things that are not necessarily from the Bible that are consistent with the Bible now the first one I understand this is a very subjective I'm not expecting anybody you know if you're not a believer if you're watching this I'm gonna expect anybody to say okay I'm gonna believe now because Tim says that he knows Jesus is alive you know when I was a kid I used to go to one of those little country churches where we had a board up on the side where showed the the numbers for the hymns that we were gonna sing that day and I always look forward to a certain number for this song he lives even as a young kid my favorite subject was the resurrection I loved singing about it I'm not gonna sing the song for you today because I want you to stick around till the for the rest of the talk but at the end of that at the the chorus says you asked me how I know he lives he lives within my heart now that might sound really strange for an unbeliever but if you're somebody who's been walking with the Lord for many years do you know what that means yeah you know exactly what that means and we know beyond any shadow of a doubt that he's alive because of the change that he's been making within us but again it's that's I understand it's very subjective but it's strong evidence for me and for other believers who have experienced the same thing they know that Christ is alive how about the testimony of these former skeptics an atheist CS Lewis Josh McDowell Lee Strobel you might have heard of these guys they set out to try to disprove the resurrection to show that it didn't happen and they became believers in fact I've got several people that I'm close to that I've debated before another on different topics in fact they'd like to argue with me about creation evolution and the age of the earth those things that we talk about a lot here at Answers in Genesis or the flood they like to argue about those things and I'll just say hey can you disprove the resurrection of Jesus for me because let's get let's go to what it's really all about and they don't touch it and I know why and I think they know why - because we have this really cool title that we give to a lot of atheists who set out to try to disprove the resurrection a lot of times we call them Christians now and for many people they don't want to believe so they're not going to study that aspect of it we also have something called the Nazareth inscription which is this marble tablet that was was claimed to have been found in Nazareth in the 1870s now it's a Reese crypt which means it's like a summary of a law passed by Emperor Claudius in the 40s not the 1940 the 40s so within 10 to 20 years of the crucifixion in the resurrection there is a law coming from the emperor that prescribes capital punishment for anybody who would move a body from a tomb with wicked intent there's no mention of typical grave robbing you know because grave robbers didn't steal the bodies they stole the valuables buried with the bodies and it specifically mentions Sepulchre sealing stones which are only found in Israel so what happened in the empire 10 to 20 years before this are close to this time that would cause the Emperor himself to pass a law forbidding anybody to move a body from a tomb with what they called wicked intent well think about what was happening as the Apostles went throughout the Empire and therefore claiming that Jesus rose from the dead and then you have other people coming along especially some of the Jewish people at that time saying no no the disciples stole the body and then you get this this riot that occurs or like what happened with Paul in a few places and Rome wanted peace so you can't have people stirring up trouble and turmoil in the Empire and say look this is all about a dead body that was allegedly moved that's what the Jewish leaders are saying so here's a law nobody can move a body from a tomb with wicked intent so here we have what it seems like archeological evidence that is perfectly consistent with their resurrection now actually in the news in just the last couple of weeks there's been some news about the Nazareth inscription some people said no no this is not about Jesus at all this is about a king from from one of these islands nearby and so but there's some problems with the argumentation in the study that was made one there's no Sepulchre sealing stones in that place and also they say it was passed by Augustus so several decades earlier and yet why would the person that whose tomb was desecrated that this is supposedly in reference to from this from this new study why would that was an enemy of Augustus why would he care if his enemy's tomb was desecrated okay so there's a couple of flaws and the argumentation there but there's still some question well that's why archaeology these kind of things we still have to make some interpretations it's not always the best evidence that some people think it is but here we have seem to have something that is perfectly consistent with the biblical record again we don't need these extra things the Bible tells us and because it's the Word of God we can believe that we we can have complete confidence that is true then we also have these five key evidences or what dr. Gary Habermas calls the five minimal facts so what he's done over 40-plus years now dr. Hebert mass has been compiling all of the different journal articles from law journals medical journals scientific journals theological journals and it doesn't matter if you're a conservative or very liberal end of the spectrum as far as theology goes it doesn't matter what your background is if you're able to get published in those journals and you're writing about the crucifixion or resurrection what are the details that that people agree on and he said the vast majority of them in fact way over 95 percent is that Jesus died by crucifixion I think it's 99 percent Jesus died by crucifixion so all the people saying Jesus didn't even live or he was you know all these that he was copied from pagan gods as we looked at in a previous session that you know there's there's no basis but among historical scholars there's no basis for that for the people who were doing the research on this number two the disciples were convinced that they had seen Jesus risen from the dead and they boldly proclaimed that as true notice the skeptics aren't saying that Jesus did rise from the dead just but the disciples not just as skeptics but all the scholars here that are that have been compiled are saying that that the disciples were at least convinced they saw Jesus risen from the dead that Paul converted because he believed he had seen Jesus that James converted for the same reason and the tomb was empty so do these five key evidences do they prove that Jesus rose from the dead no again we have scripture to tell us that he did we can have complete confidence in that but here's what these five evidences do they provide a nice little checklist for us as we go through all of these alternative theories to see if they can even match the historical details that scholars are admitting are true so here's what you'll find is that with these alternative theories some of them will try to explain how people saw him alive again and other ones will try to explain how the tomb became empty but they don't have anything that explains both and yet you need both explanations and they can't give you one so let's take a look at some of these alternative theories and I wish we had more time to get into a lot of detail with each of those but for the first one we've got this case of mistaken identity this is the Islamic view and this idea states that Jesus was shortly before his arrest he was taken up to heaven because according their theology God would never allow one of his prophets to suffer like that well maybe they should read the Old Testament God allowed his prophets to suffer quite a bit the New Testament tells us that Jesus suffered tremendously and that many of the Apostles did as well but he was taken up to heaven before the arrest and one of his disciples probably Judas was transformed to look just like him and then he's the one who got taken to the cross here's what it says in the Quran that they say in boast we killed Christ Jesus the Son of Mary the Messenger of Allah but they killed him not nor crucified him but so it was made to appear to them and those who differ therein are full of doubts with no certain knowledge but only conjecture to follow for of a surety they killed him not nay Allah raised him up to himself now there are some problems with several statements in here first of all he's talking about Jewish people boasting that they had killed Christ Jesus what a Jewish person who didn't believe in Jesus as the Messiah ever claimed that they killed Christ Jesus would ever boast about that know why because Christ and Messiah mean the same thing Anointed One Christ is from Christ is the Greek and Messiah is Mashiach in in the Hebrew it means the same thing the Anointed One and if they did believe that Jesus is a Christ they certainly want it boast about killing him they would feel shame for what they had done just as we should the fact that our sin is what leads to Jesus being on the cross and by the way Jews would never say the Messenger of Allah and how about this the whole idea is that Allah is just this deceiver who makes people think that Judas is gee this one he's really not he's just transforming this poor guy goes out to be crucified in jesus's place it's all about deception and it denies the fact that we already looked at that Jesus was crucified but it's not just the Quran that talks about that they also had the Gospel of Barnabas this concern you I mean Barnabas is called an apostle in the book of Acts he's the son of encouragement he's the one who sells a field and gives the proceeds to the church he travels with Paul here's what it says Judas entered impetuously before all into the chamber whence Jesus had been had been taken up and the disciples were sleeping whereupon the wonderful God acted wonderfully sinned so much that Judas was changed in speech and in face to be like Jesus that we believed him to be Jesus and as he was saying this the soldier he entered and laid their hands upon Judas because he was in every way like unto Jesus so the Gospel of Barnabas had this should we be concerned no because the Gospel of Barnabas was not written by Barnabas now there is an early church document called the Epistle of Barnabas but the Gospel of Barnabas is a sixteenth or seventeenth century forgery that was written in order to try to bolster the Islamic view of what happened in fact when it quotes from the Bible it quotes the Latin Vulgate which was translated by Jerome around 400 AD so I don't I think you know how this works if you're quoting something that means it was written before you so if you're quoting the Latin that means you were written after that translation was done and it quotes the Italian poet Dante who lived in around 1300 so that means it was written after that it called Jesus the Christ and Muhammad the Messiah is same sort of confusion that you see with the Quran and I think confusion that you see with people today I think a lot of people think that Christ is Jesus's last name it's not it's a title that means Anointed One it has abundant geographical and historical ears it says that they reached Nazareth by boat well I've been to Nazareth before I'd love to go back to Israel and everything but there's no way they could reach Nazareth um unless the Sea of Galilee had flooded by over 2,000 feet at that time it says Pilate was the governor at Christ's birth no he was the governor at Christ's death it says Barnabas was one of the twelve no he wasn't he was called an apostle an act but he wasn't one of the twelve there are other people who try to deny history in other ways well they'll really avoid the issue of the the resurrection altogether by saying well there's contradictions in certain places here in the Bible in the Gospels like they don't fit together just right well one I don't believe there are contradictions I think that we can reconcile all of those difficulties in fact I have a whole talk that I give just on these supposed Bible contradictions and we've got a couple of resources dealing with those as well but how would even if you were able to find what you won't be able to but let's say you could find one little contradiction about how something is reported would that discipline would that disprove the whole message the main point that everybody agrees on that Jesus rose from the dead you see really they're just trying to avoid the issue by trying to nitpick about certain things that actually can be reconciled or you have the Christ myth people claiming that Jesus never existed or he was copied from these pagan gods you've got the legend view where there was a Christians they had this this guy who was a pretty good teacher and they just kind of embellished the story as time went on he eventually became you know to the point where they were considering him to be God the Jesus family tomb there's an idea that was promoted back in 2007 I believe it was in a in a book in a video called the Jesus family tomb I wish I had time to get into each of these but these are each of these cases are so weak there so easily dismantled but for the sake of time we're gonna have to skim through them I do talk about them and a lot of detail in my book in defense of Easter answering critical challenges of the resurrection of Jesus if you want more details on that you can check that out but let's look at some of these other alternative theories that that more people have been promoting them the ones that we just kind of skipped and skimmed through you have the vision theory which is also called the telegram or Telegraph theory Jesus just has the spiritual resurrection so the body is apparently still in the tomb and his spirit is up in heaven and he he sends his followers these really vivid visions of him that they're so real that the disciples think that he's really alive again but why was the tomb empty other than the linen cloth if if it was just a spiritual resurrection do you see what I meant earlier when I said they can try to come up with a theory to explain how people saw him alive again or they can try to explain how the tomb became empty but they don't have anything that explains both and so the vision theory and some of the other ones like it like it maybe it was just a dream or this one which is actually the leading view among the critical scholars today and it's known as the mass hallucination theory or just the hallucination theory and this one what it states is that you know the disciples are so distraught they were in such a grief-stricken state that they started to hallucinate these ideas that they saw Jesus alive again now it is true that people who are really in a state of grief can hallucinate this is something that does happen on occasion it's much more common with women who have lost a husband or something elderly women who have lost a husband sometimes they will hallucinate that the husband is there talking to them but hallucinations are often very wild as well they don't make rational sense when you talk through these things and there's no indication of hallucination at all when you're looking at this I mean Jesus is appearing to them on a roadway by the seashore or on a hillside or in a locked room there there's there's no hint in any of these appearances that they're just hallucinating what about doubting Thomas remember he says I'm not gonna believe until I can put my hands in the nail scars that's what he tells the rest of the disciples because they got to see Jesus on the day of the resurrection that night Thomas there and so he said I'm not gonna believe till I see him well eight days later Jesus appears he's like Thomas go ahead the Bible never even says that Thomas did touch he just saw him he said my Lord and my god which by the way that is the correct response to Jesus Christ because that's who he is what about James why would he be in a grief stricken state that that would induce some sort of hallucination James was the half-brother of Jesus that we talked about earlier if anything when Jesus dies on the cross he would say yeah but that's what he gets for his blasphemy that's what he gets for going around claiming that he's the Messiah that he's the son of God he's not gonna be in a grief stricken State oh yeah he might be sad that his brother died but at the same time he would feel vindicated in not believing in him and yet James converts what about the five hundred people at once that Psalm you know that would actually be and understand what I mean here that would be a greater miracle than the Resurrection itself why do I say that well in one sense because Jesus had already raised people from the dead nobody there's no such thing it's been asked how loosen ation in terms of where everybody is hallucinating the same thing so yeah you could get a room full of 500 people and you can pump certain drugs in there and gasses and you can get people to hallucinate but they're not all gonna hallucinate the same thing because everything's taking place here it's all in their mind that's going on and so for to think that all of these people hosting it at the same time would be a greater miracle than the resurrection itself in that sense because Jesus had already raised people from the dead remember at gyruss his daughter this 12 year old girl who had passed away and he gets there you know because her father had come pleading for Jesus to come and help by the time he gets their little girl's dead and he says no no no she's just sleeping they they mocked him he says everybody go on out and he goes in there and with mother and father and with a couple of his disciples and says little girl get up and she gets up he walked into this town called nain and they're carrying this young man out on you know the pallbearers are carrying him out and he walks up to touches the cask and says young man get up and the young man gets up now I don't know about you but if you were one of the pallbearers do you think you might want to listen to what Jesus has to say that day and then he gets word that his friend Lazarus is sick in John chapter 11 and Jesus waits you know he gets word hey Jesus if you come you can heal him and he could but Jesus wait a couple of days and he finally goes and they said in a lazar he tells his disciples that they're gonna go to let that Lazarus a sickness of off week that Lazarus asleep and they said well if we go we can wake him he said no no no he's dead but I'm glad for your sake because you're gonna see the glory of God he shows up in Lazarus his sisters Mary and Martha come out to him one at a time and they're saying Lord if you had been here our brother wouldn't have died then he tells them to roll away the stone he says and when he does one of the sisters says but Lord he's been dead for four days and he stinketh that's how the King James puts it because four days the body's decaying and everything don't if you roll away the stone that's gonna be terrible Jesus is rolled away the stone then he says Lazarus come forth and then the man who had been dead came out of the tomb bound hand and foot with a cloth wrapped around his head and he was alive and well in fact several people many people were believing in Jesus because of what happened with Lazarus they saw they knew that Lazarus had died and they saw him alive again that many people were putting their faith in Jesus that to the point where some of the chief priests were plotting to put Lazarus to death the poor guy had just died and here they are trying to put him to death again because here's evidence that Jesus is exactly who we claim to be Jesus told the disciples go ahead and touch me you can see that I'm not a ghost Luke 24:39 the whole idea of a vision or dream or hallucination that being evident that this is what was really happening in the resurrection is it's nonsensical in fact think about this whole idea because they're not shared experiences you can go to sleep tonight and if you're married younger asleep you and your spouse can sleep and you can be dreaming about being in your favorite place you can both have a dream where you're in your in your favorite spot in the whole world and you can even have dream that you're talking to each other when you wake up in the morning you can say hey remember what we talked about this last night in our sleep you can't do that because it was in each one of you had that in your own head and it was a different conversation that was happening but I think 500 people did that at once then there's the theory that say Jesus just faked his death the swoon theory you may have heard of this one before in fact it was popular in the 1800s up until the 1880s when it was really shot down by by another liberal scholar who said this just doesn't make any sense so said Jesus was just any when he went on the cross he slipped into a coma like state he swooned but what about the Centurion at the cross it's his job to make sure that people are dead they were really good at their job they knew what death looked like what it sounded like and sorry but what it smelled like they knew when somebody was dead and they said Jesus had died and then just to make sure they put the spear in his side and John tells us something weird at that point that blood and water flowed now it's strange when we read that verse but now modern medical examiner's can look at that passage and say you know what we know for a fact Jesus dead here's a general said a medical examiner even before he died the hypovolemic shock which means just a low blood volume because of all the beatings and everything so the hearts got to pump faster to get blood to every area of the body the hypovolemic shock would have caused a sustained rapid heart rate that would have contributed to heart failure resulting in the collection of fluid in the membrane around the heart called a pericardial effusion as well as around the lungs which is called a pleural effusion the Spear apparently went through the right lung and into the heart so when the spear was pulled out some fluid the pericardial effusion and the pleural effusion came out this would have the appearance of a clear fluid like water followed by a large volume of blood as the eye witness John described in his Gospel John probably had no idea why he saw both blood and a clear fluid come out certainly that's not what an untrained person like him would have anticipated yet John's description is consistent with what modern medicine would expect to have happened so modern medical experts can look at that and say yeah if somebody endured the beatings that Jesus into her and then they put the spirit that's what would happen and look at what John does in his gospel throughout John chapter 19 he's saying he's describing the crucifixion and the the the trials and everything then he's just describing here's what happened and this happened and this happened and this happened then the spear and this happened then he look what he says one of the soldiers pierced his side of the spear and immediately blood and water came out and he who has seen has testified and his testimony is true and he knows that he's telling the truth you may believe and then this happened and then this happened what is John doing in verse 35 it's almost like he's saying ok I know that sounded really really weird but that's what I saw I was there and I'm telling you the truth and we can look at that statement today I said yeah we know he was dead based on that but think about this whole idea of the swoon theory so Jesus slips into a coma lake state he's not really dead on the cross and then they put him into this this cold and dark tomb and somehow he revives while he's there and he's got to get out of the burial cloths you know they got their wrists in the and the ankles tied together they got to get that he got to get out of that and he's got to get to the the door of the tomb he can't crawl he just had spikes driven through the wrists or through the hands he can't walk at all he just had spikes driven through his feet the best he could do some sort of military crawl but imagine I mean just had his whole front and back flogged so ripped open and everything can you imagine how painful that would be then he's got to somehow roll away the stone from the inside by himself if that's even possible in any way shape or form and he's got to do that without the soldiers hearing it then he's got to sneak away find the disciples and say he's any by the way he's just barely clinging to life saying I conquered death no every single one of them said no you're a fraud and I'm not giving my life for you but that's not how he appeared to them he appeared to them in perfect health and every one of them was willing to give their lives for him so in the 1960s this view was revived pardon the pun by Hugh Schoenfeld and a best-selling book called the Passover plot says that Jesus schemed the whole crucifixion and so he was he plotted with one or more of his disciples to give him this really powerful drug that would knock him out on the cross and everybody would think he was dead and then they would they put him in the tomb and the disciples come and help let him out and then he would appear to people and say look I conquered death but he didn't anticipate the spear wound so he's only old able to live for a few more days and made a couple of appearances many died and so this is what the Passover plot says in the book well what about all the rest of the post resurrection appearances it doesn't explain those and why would the disciples die for what they know to be a lie and there many other problems with this as well but I want you to understand the type of people who write these books I want you to see their minds that are the things that they say here's what he shown felt says in his book the image of Jesus which emerges from this book does not want honestly examine detract from his greatness and uniqueness can you imagine according to Hugh Schoenfeld Jesus is a lying scheming manipulative fraud who tried to fake his own death and claim to be God or the Bible says he left the glories of heaven he humbled himself and became one of us God Himself the Son of God becomes one of us and is born of a virgin and very humble in a very humble setting and he lives a sinless life and then he goes and endures all sorts of torture including crucifixion in our place and then he rises from the dead and it makes him showed himself alive by many infallible proofs and then is raised to the right hand of God that's what the Bible says about him or what Hugh Stone fed it felt says a lying scheming manipulative ride and schönefeld says it doesn't detract from his uniqueness and greatness at all are you kidding me how delusional do you have to be to not just write that but to believe some of those things that he's saying but again people will believe anything about Jesus that is not what the Bible says about Jesus they're looking for anything to get away from what Scripture really says about and that is that he is Savior and Lord so then there are other theories that have been proposed where people really just grasping at straws the women went to the wrong tomb this is one of my favorite ones this is described in a book in the late 1880s by a professor kir Southlake it hasn't really caught on you can see why the disciples went re the women went to the wrong tomb that morning and you can sort of understand that part because they leave while it's still dark and by the time they get there the Sun risen yeah that was meant to have a double meaning the S UN had risen and yes the S o n had risen as well but so they go to the wrong tomb and nobody's there so they think wow he must have risen they go and tell everybody okay but what about everybody else when they go back and check it out I mean did they continue to go to the wrong tomb that Joseph of my Arimathea the guy who owned the tomb did he forget where his tomb was I mean he could have checked it out what about the Jewish authorities did they forget and why did they promote a different view did the Roman soldiers guard the wrong tomb and what about the angels did they go to the wrong tomb as well why were there angels in the wrong tomb and what about all the post resurrection appearances or what about the burial cloths did somebody else rise from the dead that day you can't see why this is one of my favorite alternative theories it just doesn't make any sense but people are willing to believe anything other than the truth about who Jesus is or some people say that he the disciples conjured him up and during some sort of seance and so this if you can imagine some sort of phantasm or some sort of ectoplasmic goo if you think Ghostbusters and slime or something like that and somehow they mistook that for a physical bodily resurrection and yet there's no mention of any of this kind of thing going on and Jesus appears to them when they're not even expecting him and why would the disciples who were devout Jews knowingly violate the law given in Deuteronomy 18 which forbid expressly forbid any attempted communication with the dead and how would that ever be mistaken for for a resurrection and there's a bunch of other less common theories in addition to the seance theory the annihilation theory which says Jesus's body just dissipated into gases in the tomb oh that's a beautiful idea really I mean try proving that one in court where's your evidence I don't have any but it must have been that because I don't like the alternative it'll get thrown out immediately so your whole argument there's absolutely no evidence for at all or some people say no he's the world's first time traveler so he was on the cross and then B you know they were able to zap him out of there and heal him or here's what it really is it comes down to an anti-christian bias they don't want it to be true because if Jesus rose from the dead and he did then who is he he's the son of God his Lord of lords and King of Kings and he is going to return someday and judge this world in righteousness and that's exactly who he is but let's take a look at the last group of arguments here the last group of ideas and that's that somebody moved the body now or that the body was buried in a different way than what we read about in the Gospels so there's the whole idea that grave robbers stole the body but grave robbers again they don't steal bodies they stole the valuables buried with the bodies or the reburial idea this is from a document known as Toledo ta Zoo which is from the 8th century but they believe it goes back to it early as the 4th century and here's what it says that there was the gardener there because the tomb was at a garden remember and the the gardeners name is Judah he overheard the disciples plotting to steal the body so before they could get there and do it he moved the body to a different place and sold it to the Jewish authorities for I bet you gets can't guess how much money you're probably thinking thirty pieces of silver right now because every time I ask that question somebody gets yeah because that's exactly what I said where do you think they get that from from the Bible and then the Jewish authorities allegedly dragged the body through the streets and everybody knew that Jesus had died and so when the disciples go around just a few days later proclaiming that he rose from the dead and on the day of pentecost seven weeks later when they said you know Jesus rose from the dead every one of the people in that crowd could have said no we just saw his body dragged to the streets what he talkin about well none of that happened and that even the Jewish authorities reject that view puts them in a very bad light and it's not the view that they've been promoting for hundreds of years John Dominic Crossan of the Jesus Seminar said that dogs and maybe other birds or other animals like like crows or other birds have had eaten the body he says this by Easter Sunday morning those who cared did not know where it was talking about the body of Jesus and those who knew did not care why should even the soldiers themselves remember the death and disposal of a nobody I hope that statement offended you because it is offensive when you talk that way about Jesus Christ but I've got a question for John Dominic Crossan one of the leading members of the Jesus Seminar why have you spent your entire adult career trying to disprove the resurrection of a nobody you see John Dominic Crossan knows that Jesus is not a no but in fact Jesus is the most influential person that has ever lived by far there's not anybody even close to that and yet you get statements like this pray for this guy for John Dominic Crossan because you know one of the cofounders of the Jesus Seminar Marcus Borg passed away a few years ago it's too late for him he knows beyond any shadow of a doubt now that Jesus rose from the dead it's too late but it's not too late for people like John Dominic Ross and pray for him but they would bow the knee humbly before Christ before it's too late but you know what let's look at this argument so the whole idea is an argument from silence there's no ancient writing acidities it's just buried in a shallow grave which is his idea he says here's a comment he was crucified as a common criminal whether he was guilty or not that's a different matter but he was just that that's what happened to crucifixion victims they didn't get an honorable burial they were just thrown in this common grave and the body would decay it would be eaten that kind of thing but it contradicts at their own historical method their own historiography how you how you write science how you record history how you record it and that is if you have early multiple sources that are reliable that speak about something well then and that's probably what happened well guess what all four Gospels report that Jesus was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea so you have early reliable sources telling us what happened and he just says nope I'm not believing that I don't want that one so I'll come up with something else even though that contradicts my own methodology and it also contradicts Roman and ancient Roman and Jewish laws for example the Roman law says the bodies of those who are condemned to death should not be refused their relatives and should be given to whoever requests them for the purpose of burial that's Roman law how about Old Testament law if a man has committed a sin deserving a death and he is put to death and you hang him on a tree his body shall not remain overnight on the tree but you shall surely bury him that day so that you do not defile the land for he who is hanged is a cursed by God and this is what a lot of the disciples must have been wondering at that point Jesus was hung on a tree on a cross is he really being cursed by God well think of what Isaiah 53 says that it prophesied we considered him smitten by God yeah that's exactly what people would have been thinking that if he's being crucified then God's cursing him now actually he's being crucified as part of God's plan to redeem us he's laying all of the sin of the world on his son who's taking our sin so that we can be forgiven but then what about Jewish practice at that time well just see if Estelle's it's just a little bit later the Jews are so careful about burial rites that even malefactors who had been sentenced to be crucified are taken down and buried before sunset all of these line up perfectly with what the Bible says he have the Roman law Jewish law Jewish practice he had the biblical account and John Dominic Crossan says I don't care about any of that he was eaten by wild animals that's not history that's make-believe and the Jewish authorities promoted a different view and here it is this is the one that you read about in Scripture in Matthew 27 on the next day which followed the day of preparation the chief priests and Pharisees gathered together to pilate saying sir we remember while he was still alive how that deceiver said after three days I will rise now that they just said they recognized that he had prophesied he was gonna rise from the dead three days later so they're admitting that he had predicted his own resurrection therefore command that the tomb be made secure until the third day lest his disciples come by night and steal him away and say to the people he has risen from the dead so the last deception will be worse than the first Pilate said to them you have a guard go your way make it as secure as you know how so they went and made the tomb secure sealing the stone and setting the guard well the question comes up here when Pilate says you have a guard was he saying you have your own guard do it yourself or was he saying here you go you have a guard go do it the word there is the Greek word custodia and it refers to a watcher a century many people believe it could have been anywhere from 4 to 16 different soldiers there but Roman or temple guards well actually the Bible tells us what they were if you continue reading Matthew 28 this is after Jesus had risen from the dead after the angel rolled away the stone after the soldiers shook like dead men is what it 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 when they had assembled with the elders and consulted together they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers saying tell them his disciples came at night and stole him away while we slept there's the argument his disciples came at night and stole him away while we slept remember that and if this comes to the governor's ears we will appease him and make you secure which one were they Roman soldiers or temple guard it's pretty clear they were a Roman soldier because if they were just temple guards would they care if the governor heard about it now if they were Roman soldiers were they care you have what was the penalty for Roman soldiers who fell asleep on the job during their night duties there was death actually the way they would do it according to police is that they would line up their entire company of soldiers into like this tunnel that you would have to run through and as you ran through they would beat you to death with cudgels and if anybody ever happened to survive that then they were forbidden to be there was nobody was permitted to ever help them assist them in any way they couldn't go into any of the towns or villages look Roman soldiers didn't fall asleep on the job but then it goes on in the Bible tells so they took the money and did as they were instructed and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day when Matthew wrote had written his gospel that was commonly reported among the Jews in fact it was commonly reported in the second century in the third century in the fourth century because we have early church fathers who were on record debating with Jewish authorities who were saying no the disciples stole the body that argument was still being used but there is a huge problem with his view I don't know if you caught it when I went through it the disciples came and iton stole the body while we slept did you catch it the disciples came and stole the body while we slept how could sleeping soldiers know who stole the body if their eyes were shut you see every single argument that is raised against the knowledge God will do exactly this it will crumble it will fall because the word of man cannot stand but the word of God stands forever and so anytime people try to come up with ideas that contradict God's Word those will always fail and that's what people have been trying to do for 2,000 years to try to explain away the resurrection of Jesus Christ why because if he rose from the dead and he did then that means we have to answer to him and someday everyone will be before him every knee will bow every tongue will confess so what now what do we do with this information take a look at the list here's all those alternative theories and it's not like I'm holding back on their toughest ones like I don't know how to answer them or something right now they're all there and we talked about while there's one that we didn't talk about sorry on the right side they're alien stole the body I've seen that as well if that's what you have to resort to well somehow that's more believable than the person who's more influential than any other person in human history by far there's not even a close second the person who was predicted throughout all of these Old Testament prophecies who fulfilled these prophecies in detail and to the letter and the person that skeptics are so concerned about and spend so much time trying to disprove his existence or trying to disprove certain things about him they state in fact it seems sometimes skeptics are more worried about Jesus and more concerned about Jesus then a lot of Christians are why well because I think deep down we know that's exactly right and I think deep down a lot of skeptics know it's true as well they're trying to they're trying to persuade themselves that it's not so they're willing to believe anything other than the truth on this matter but here's my question - if you're an unbeliever if you have not given your life to the Lord take a look at the list pick one which one do you want actually you don't need one you need to you need one that explains how they saw him alive again you need one that explains the empty tomb and when you add those two really really really weak views together it doesn't make a stronger case it makes it a lot weaker because now you're depending on two extremely weak views and that's what you're that's what you're hoping for as far as eternity you're hoping that Jesus really isn't a way that shouldn't live in yet we have looked at some of the evidence today for the resurrection and we can go into much more detail on that and it's been called the most well proven event in ancient history for a reason but you know Jesus didn't talk about they didn't just say that I'm the way and he did say that in John 14:6 I am the way the truth and the life no one comes to the Father except through me and that is such an offensive statement in our culture today how dare you say that you're the only way but what for Winfrey says it's impossible Jesus can't be the only way that is one of the most offensive things you could say in our culture today because you got a respect every reason beliefs yeah you can have respect for other people with belief it doesn't mean that you have to treat them as valid it doesn't mean that they're true or equally true you can still have respect for that person but there's they're saying that that's impossible there's no way he can be the only wait he didn't just make that claim he proved it how remember what happened in the Garden of Gethsemane father if it's at all possible let this cup pass for me Jesus knew what was about to happen he knew he was gonna be arrested just a short time for them he knew he was gonna be put on a bunch of trials and that he would be beaten that he would be spit upon that he would be mocked he knew that he'd be flogged he knew that he was gonna be crucified and he also was fully man and he didn't want to endure that he didn't want to go through with it and that's completely understandable none of us would ever want to go through that and yet what will he say shortly after this nevertheless not my will but your will be done he still went to the cross what was he praying Lord if it's possible if we can save sinners another way then please let's do it another way and yet did he still go to the cross yes what does that mean that there is no other way for man to be saved except through the shed blood of Jesus Christ in his resurrection it doesn't matter how good you might be as a Hindu or as a Buddhist or as a Muslim or or Mormon or whatever belief system you have you cannot be redeemed except through the blood of Jesus Christ on the cross except by faith in Jesus Christ alone for salvation because if you could be saved another way than Jesus did not need to die on the cross and yet he did God didn't spare his own son when Paul was preaching in Athens he ended his message with this therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent because he has fixed today in which he judge the world in righteousness through a man whom he has appointed having furnished proof to all men by raising him from the dead what is proof that the Gospel message is true Christ resurrection from the dead Romans 10:9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead you will be saved and then what Jesus said to Lazarus his sister says jesus said to her I am the resurrection and the life he who believes in me though he may die he shall live and whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die my question for you is the same question Jesus asked her do you believe this are you placing your faith in the risen Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to save you from your sins if you are you can have absolute confidence that one day he will raise you from the dead as well and you'll spend eternity with him where there is no more tears no more sorrow no more pain no more death no more curse but if you're rejecting him and you continue in that rebellion the Bible says that you will be judged according to your work and you will be paying the penalty for your sins for all eternity you'll be separated from God for eternity and what's called the lake of fire and I don't want that for you I don't want that for anybody and the solution is to bow your knee to Christ humble yourself and call out to him to forgive you and put your faith in the one who died on the cross for your sins and then rose from the dead and that's Jesus Christ and if you are a believer what are you doing to tell others about him let's be busy serving our Lord out of gratitude for what he's done well I could go on and on talking about the resurrection I love this subject but it's we do need to bring things to a close let me let me pray and then I want to tell you about a few of the resources that we have here available for at Answers in Genesis let's let's pray our Heavenly Father we thank you for this day we thank you for your son Jesus Christ thank you that he was willing to become one of us to live a sinless life to show us how we were supposed to live - it's not just show us the weight of it but to actually be the way and that's who he is he is the way the truth and life lord thank you that he was willing to undergo the most agonizing torment that we could ever dish out and he did that not because of his own sin because he was sinless he did it for us he did it so that we can be forgiven so that we don't have to die for our sins but Lord we can have our we can have his righteousness applied to our account that we can be completely forgiven so that when you see us you actually see his righteousness and then lord thank you for raising from the dead three days later showing that you have power over the grave power over death and giving us the hope and the guarantee of eternal life for all who believe in him father we pray these things I pray that that those who do not know you as Savior that those who have not humbled themselves and that bowed the knee before you is Lord that they would think about the things we talked about they would they would think through who Jesus really is and what their objections are why do they object to them what is it in their heart that's holding them back from trusting you father pray that you would work in their lives and in their minds and in their hearts often those things Lord - - the truth of your word and the Gospel message father we pray these things in the name of the risen Savior Jesus Christ amen so I mentioned a few resources we hid during this time if you're watching this as it's airing this is Resurrection Sunday and unfortunately the Creation Museum the Ark Encounter have been shut down because of the Cova 19 virus so hopefully we'll be able to reopen soon but we've got some freebies for you answers Sider calm this is our monthly newsletter that you can sign up for so go there and it's a free newsletter you get some of the latest news about the ministry we've been running Facebook live programs throughout this entire time every day from 10:00 a.m. 12 p.m. three o'clock in the afternoon 7 o'clock at night you can see a lot of the behind the scenes photos some of the other speakers that are giving presentations and during this time if you're in a position that you can help us as a ministry because many of us are thankfully many of us are still able to to be working at this time we have that privilege but without the ark and the museum being open a lot of the revenue that normally comes into the ministry is not coming in so if you're in a position where you're able to help us out and give please visit Answers in Genesis org /give and and help us out if you're if if the Lord lays that on your heart if you want to see this presentation or one very similar to it this is available on DVD called He is risen casting down challenges for the resurrection of Jesus or if you want to go in a lot more detail about the resurrection I did a series with my friend Eric Hovind sever a few years back called risen without a doubt it's actually a twelve session study on six DVDs going through the events from the triumphal entry through the to the arrests through the trials and the crucifixion and then the resurrection so in much more detail about all these events there's a study guide that'll walk you through those things as well the book that I mentioned earlier in defense of Easter answering critical challenges for the resurrection of Jesus just had such a wonderful time of researching and writing this book every single day that I was working on I got to study the resurrection of Jesus so as it's something I loved doing we've got a chapter on the resurrection in this book how do we know the Bible is true the first volume deals with that some of the issues that I mentioned in this talk and also in my talk that you may have watched yesterday on the modern myths about Jesus are covered in both of these volumes if you want to know more about what we do as a ministry a lot of the questions that we get on a regular basis about creation and evolution the age of the earth was there ever really a global flood all of those kind of things that we get on a regular basis are covered in detail in these and what's called the answered book series there are four of them now each of them deal with 25 to 35 of the most commonly asked questions resources to have so you can pick those up we've got a series of books that I put together with a buddy of mine I wanted to take the information that we teach here at the Creation Museum at the Ark Encounter and actually in this presentation that you made that you just heard actually a lot of information is presented in the second book in this series this is an action-adventure series for young people it's called the truth Chronicles it's illustrated with this manga style of art and so there's for you it's youth fiction so it's um like junior high middle school age I've had a lot of fun with that and there are a lot of fun for adults too there's a study guide that goes through 15 of these issues and much more details so a lot of the things that we address as a ministry are actually woven into the story it's a time-travel adventure so you get to see dinosaurs and all sorts of other things as well and I mentioned in defense of Easter before we've got some specials here we've got 8 right now we're offering $10 off and free shipping any order of $49 or more you have to use this coupon code save 10 when a check out there and we also have our educational classes are a creation apologetic class is on sale right now there are six different classes from all from several different scientific disciplines astronomy and creation apologetics in general geology and several others are all six courses normally would be almost $300 value but we're offering all six of them for only $19 right now go to any answers education comm for more details thank you so much for your time say god bless

Channel: Answers in Genesis

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Length: 81min 6sec (4866 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 12 2020