What If It's All True!

the following message by Alistair beg is made available by truth for life for more information visit us online at truth for we're going to read the opening verses of Luke and it's chapter 24 but on the first day of the week at early dawn they went to the tomb taking the spices they had prepared and they found the stone rolled away from the tomb but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus while they were perplexed about this behold two men stood by them in dazzling apparel and as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground the men said to them why do you seek the living among the dead he is not here but has risen remember how he told you while he was still in Galilee but the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise and they remembered his words and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles but these words seemed to them an idle tale and they did not believe them but Peter rose and ran to the tomb stooping and looking in he saw the linen clothes by themselves and he went home marveling at what had happened thanks be to God for his word father what we know not teach us what we have not give us what we are not make us for your son's sake amen well whatever had happened to the body of Jesus one thing was clear and that is it was no longer in the tomb all of the records make this perfectly plain it's one of the main things and the plain things when you come to a consideration of the resurrection now the fact that by that Sunday morning the tomb was empty does not prove that Jesus was alive it simply proves that the tomb was empty it is if you like circumstantial evidence the kind of evidence that Columbo over 30 years on American TV managed to handle with great skill with his reign called call are all rumpled up and his one bad eye and and and is just one more thing this definitely would have been one of Colombo's just one more things and he used to say I'm just trying to tie up a few loose ends sir you knew exactly what he was doing he was the sleuth now Luke tells us that when the women went back to the disciples with the news of the empty tomb they did not immediately burst into song their reaction was not a start singing see what a morning all gloriously bright in actual fact their response was unbelief Luke says that the message and the way in which it was conveyed by the women seemed to them to be nothing more than an idle tale if you like an old wives tale and I think it's worth just pausing and acknowledging that that's the view of many in our contemporary society it may actually be your view in coming here this morning and you have said to yourself well whatever I know about it and however much regard I may have for it it does seem to me just at the very core to be something of a superstition and an idle tale well an actual fact whatever hopes these disciples had cherished to this point they had been obliterated by the crucifixion and the Gospel writers provide us together with a picture of a group of men demoralized and actually paralyzed by the events that had unfolded John says that by evening on that first day of the week they had locked themselves down away afraid of any repercussions from the Jews and from the authorities but when you think about that it actually begs a question and the question is simply this how then do we account for the dramatic change in these same disciples the dramatic change that is recorded for us whereby in relatively short order within a matter of a few weeks their lament was replaced with joy their fear was transposed into faith and their diffidence and their skepticism was now replaced by forceful and by unashamed proclamation if you're interested to think these things out then you can read of this in the early chapters of the Acts of the Apostles the sort of history book of the church and there we're told that Peter stands up and he says men of Israel Jesus of Nazareth a man who was attested to you by miracles as you yourselves know and who was put to death by cruel man who was buried as you yourselves know this Jesus he says God has raised him up now I'm going to assume that there will be at least a few this morning for whom this is a useful exercise to say if I want to give serious consideration to the resurrection then amongst all of the factors with which I need to reckon these two are primary one the fact of an empty tomb and two the fact of the transformation in the disciple now we have to be fair and say that if one is looking for explanations to disprove the resurrection there are plenty of them available they're readily available and actually they haven't changed a great deal in my lifetime and perhaps not in yours either I leave aside many of the trivial ones notions such as well the reason they thought it was an empty tomb was because the women went to the wrong tomb which seems to me to be rather unkind to the women as if they wouldn't know their way around and at the same time a bit of an insult to my intelligence well they will leave aside most of the silly ones but here here are the here are the primary ones here is why we do not believe that the empty tomb spoke to the issue of the resurrection number one because Jesus was never really dead that's what they say - that the disciples came and stole the body three that they actually fabricated the entire notion or four that the body was stolen by the Jewish authorities now that's all out there for our consideration and the honest seeker the genuine person who is wondering about these things needs to then take those explanations for why it isn't true and ask themselves the question don't do these explanations do justice to the facts as presented and I suggest such an individual needs to be prepared also to ask this question what if it's all true what if it's all true you see when you read the Bible it doesn't come across like mythology CS Lewis on one occasions in one of his books I don't know which one it is he he says you know I've spent all of my career as an English prof dealing with mythology and dealing with legend he says I know about mythology I know what it sounds like I know what it reads like and he said but when I began to read the New Testament it didn't seem at all like that to me it wasn't written in that kind of phraseology and in that kind of framework no it's actually kind of categorical listen to Paul as he opens up what is the classic chapter on the resurrection in all of his writings first Corinthians 15 this is how he puts it for I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received that Christ died for sins in accordance with the scriptures that he was buried that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures that he appeared to Cephas that is to Peter and to the twelve he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time most of whom are still alive thereby being able to put up their hands and say no he didn't if they needed to and then he appeared to James and the Apostles and then he says and actually he appeared to me as well and then he goes on through that chapter to drive home the fact that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a game-changer as what he says if he is not alive then any notion of the forgiveness of sins and hope of eternity is completely fabricated however he says if this whole thing is true then here is what follows making the point you see that the resurrection is not something tacked on to the story of Christianity the summer and other you have a Christianity that is all about morality and about ethics and about being kind to people but there's a few crazies in the realm of Christianity who've got this resurrection thing that they won't give up on and it is tagged on to the end well in actual fact no the resurrection is at the very heart of the story and without the resurrection Christianity itself collapses like a broken deckchair both the death of Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus are one incontrovertible out of God and when you read the testimony you realize that's the case Christianity without the resurrection is not actually Christianity now I'm so glad that we had that little piece from Jeff Williams because he's a scientist and a good one he's an engineer and a chemist and someone who has made his way into the space agency as a result of being a test pilot and doing all kinds of brave and crazy things so that we might fly in safety and our military as well you're going to have to if you're a skeptic here today say that somehow that that that a space helmet must have crushed his head a little too tight for him to actually be on the airwaves with us say that is rejoicing in the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth you see the inference abroad is that faith and reason are incompatible that the Bible is calling for people to exercise what is referred to as blind faith that you stop thinking and you start believing and in that realm of non thinking it may be possible for you to actually embrace these things now there is no question that blind faith is out there but what I'm suggesting to you is that the New Testament doesn't call for it the New Testament in the way in it unfolds asks us to think asks us to consider asks us to reason to think now that in itself may be the problem to think in the Wall Street Journal on 18th of December last year and I know this because I wrote it down not because I went looking for a good illustration from The Wall Street Journal just in case you're wondering but I had written it down on 18th of December last year because it struck me it was in the Arena section of the paper and the journalist said this we are awash in media generated emotion we are awash in media generated emotion how do you feel has replaced what happened as the obligatory question reporters asked I think they're right they rushed to the scene and they don't say now what happened here they on this story the emotional story how did you feel what happened and so on even in golf tournaments for goodness sake check me on this and see if I'm wrong and I won't name the person I named him in the first service I shouldn't do that but you'll know who he is if you know and that is as soon as it gets close to the end of the tournament the music changes and outcome the sob stories about the man who's about to win and his grandpa was also a great man but sadly just two days ago he was taken into the hospital and he's not doing so well and from his bed you said I said give me a break I'm watching a golf tournament for goodness sake turn the piano music off and stop the nonsense don't you think that I'm a sensible enough soul to understand what the score is and what's happening here why are you doing this to me oh you see that's so embedded in us that when it comes to the issue of Christianity many of us are waiting for the people let's turn the music up now let's try they won't be able to think about this so let's see if we can just fuel them into the issue no not for a moment when the New Testament asks us to think deeply it is in order that that which we then experience may emerge as a result of that about which we have thought now let's come back to these issues these explanations as to why the resurrection isn't true number one Jesus never really died at its worst this explanation says that one of the thieves crucified with him was actually a doctor and since none of them were dead with the aromatic spices in the tomb they had somebody who could patch them all up enough so that they could go out and get on with their lives how does that strike you how much faith do you need to believe that one quite a lot oh but they say no he was waking up there was an earthquake and the earthquake woke him up oh dear oh dear no don't you think we can trust the roman soldiers to know the difference between somebody fainting and somebody died that was their whole business execution they were executioner's execution there's no when they've done what they set out to do that's why the gospel record says that when they came to the body of Jesus having broken the bones and the legs of the others in order to create asphyxia they did not break his legs why because he was already dead and the plunge spear gave in the serum the evidence of what had actually taken place and frankly if that does not convince you enough of what then do you make of the record in John's Gospel where it says that Nicodemus remember the man that Jesus met by night Nicodemus had then shown up and had come to the tomb of Jesus and he came by night and he came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes about 75 pounds in weight all right so they took the body of Jesus and they bound it in linen cloths with spices as is the burial custom of the Jews what do you think the chances are of somebody coming into your bedroom and starting to wrap you in your in your in the Linens on your bed and smothering you with 75 pounds of aromatic spices and then you being anything other than dead now they say no Jesus wasn't dead or Jesus disciples stolen mum what motivation to steal it that was actually a lie invented by the Jewish leaders they said they will give you money if you will say that they came and stole him so they knew that he was dead they stole him they presumably went and hid him somewhere and then on the strength of that they went out to get themselves killed on that basis oh yes you say well that happens all the time there are martyrs there are religious martyrs we've seen it every day we saw it in Brussels we see it all the time listen there are religious fanatics who died for a cause they believed to be true of course there are but the disciples were in a position to know whether the cause was a fabrication or not that's the difference we're being asked to believe that they knew it was a flat-out lie and then on the basis of the lie they went out to transform the world you're sensible people think it out thirdly it was stolen by the Jews why would they steal it and if they stole it why didn't they produce it he said in three days well then on the fourth day just produce it oh you say you're just basing this all in the New Testament glad you mentioned it yeah of course I am because actually the New Testament itself is part of the evidence to consider why would you ever have a New Testament why would anyone ever have taken the trouble to write this stuff down there were all kinds of people saying all kinds of things making all kinds of claims at that point in history but in this case he had made these exaggerated claims they had been apparently unfulfilled they had come to a crashing halt he was buried in a tomb and they said why don't we write this down and try and make everybody believe that it's something other than it was I don't think you're I don't think you're prepared for that are you there's not a page of the New Testament that has been written absent the conviction that Jesus Christ was actually risen from the dead they picked up their pens to write not in order to invent a risen Jesus but because they had encountered the Risen Jesus again it comes in categorical terms here is John who wrote a gospel in his letter he says listen that which was from the beginning which we've heard which we've seen with our eyes which we've looked on which we've touched with our hands concerning the word of life the Lord the life was made manifest we've seen it we testified to it and we proclaim to you the eternal life which is now ours as he learned to say in the Lord Jesus Christ well that's so categorical there's no way around that that's either fact or fiction and he's only coming off his gospel where he explains in his gospel there were many things that Jesus did that are not written in my gospel he says but I've written these down these signs have been written down in order that you might believe and that by believing you might have life in his name what is he saying there he's saying that the progression to living faith in Jesus is first of all a consideration of who he is and what he's done in other words here is the evidence sift the evidence the evidence may provide sufficient reason for us to trust him it will not compel belief if evidence compel belief nobody would smoke no one would smoke evidence does not in itself compel belief the evidence gives sufficient basis for further consideration belief then says is this more believable than that is this trustworthy or is that and then in believing to discover life in his name now I say to you here's a question here is the question what if it's all true what if it's all true because the gospel is not just about ideas it's about God acting in history it's farm were in than that it's not a story of a Galilean carpenter who went around with a few ideas it is actually that God and God was incarnate in this individual that God invaded time and space and that in that in doing so he came in order to fulfill a purpose to take a broken world and to refix it so that men and women might know what it is to love God and to live in the presence of God that's why it says very straightforwardly that Christ died for our sins Christ was buried Christ was raised I say to you again a Good Friday and Easter are a whole one indivisible act of God if you're a Christian today you believe in a risen Lord or you wouldn't believe at all but the risen Lord in whom you believe is the Jesus who died an atoning death for your sins by his death and resurrection writes Paul in Romans for by his death and resurrection Jesus has achieved salvation for all who trust in him he was delivered over to death for our sins and raised again to secure our justification he has achieved salvation for all who trust him he has not achieved salvation for all who say yeah I believe there was a Jesus he has not achieved salvation for all who say yeah I think the Sermon on the Mount is is a good document he has not achieved salvation for those who say I'm trying to turn over a good leaf and be a nice much better person than I was in the first 20 years of my life he has achieved salvation for all who trust him I emphasize the point because I want to ask you a question it's quite an invasive question but don't worry because I won't name you like a I don't know you all but here's my question have you ever come to Jesus Christ and trusted him have you ever come to Jesus Christ and trusted him you see in the words of an old song from childhood he did not come to judge the world he did not come to blame he did not only come to seek it was to save he came and when we call him Savior and when we call him Savior and when we call him Savior then we call him by his name have you ever come to and said you know it's the problem Lord Jesus is not the world and our world is such a mess the problem is my mess my sins if you ever come to Jesus and said Lord Jesus Christ you are the only one who can and can set my guilty conscience free you are the only one who can break the bondage in my soul you're the only one who can bring me into the presence of God you're the only one who can able me to live for his glory I said well I don't know I like some of that you might be say I don't like the sin pot it's quite good but not the sin part I get that we don't like to face it do we I wouldn't like my sins for the past week to be put up here on this screen screen couldn't hold them we bridge this have to do maybe yesterday or this morning which of us would be prepared to have our sins put up on that screen those sins that have separated us from a holy cow those sins that have to be dealt with one way or another and that's why we try and deal with them some of us try and deal with the fact by by way of comparison and so we say well I'm not what I should be but I'm definitely not as bad as her or we simply try and do a cover up a snow job or we say who cares are you going to do or we actually bow down and confess them we come to Jesus Christ and acknowledge that he came to die for our sins that there was no other good enough to pay the price of sin that no one else could open up the door of heaven and let us in you see the Bible again is very straightforward in these matters there's no reason to fudge them this is Paul if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead you will be saved okay so there is a conviction of heart there is a confession of live life and there is a transformation someone says well it can't just be that simple it can be that straightforward well no it can't and yes it is you see it's not some story of easy believers omit it has great cost that's the significance of the death of Jesus and it has contained in it a great mystery whereby this encounter happens you see if I was simply a salesman and you were consumers and I had a product and I was impressive and coercive and influential and gave you a goodbye on the deal I can probably sell quite a lot to you but I can't do one thing to move you one inch closer to trusting Christ the way that it actually happens is that Jesus the risen Christ calls out to you the risen Living Word calls out to you through his written word they say well wait a minute well let me put it simply for you do you remember when we were small and our parents would waken us in the morning let's say we had to go on a trip or early up somewhere they were actually calling us before we ever heard them and when we first heard them we probably just heard them as a noise that had awakened us but as we came to if you like we heard our names and we realized they are calling me Alistair waking up it's time to get up remember our story in the Bible with the death of the girl and Jesus had gone into the dead girl and he said to her little girl waken up and the people said how crazy is this what a strange thing to say and she awakened listen if you are a Christian this morning that is actually what has happened to you you see God's Word speaks to you it starts to call to you in fact it may be unsettling for you because you find yourself say you know I would never have gone and listened to that before I don't even know what's up with me I don't even know why I went and yet as the word is explained it's almost as if it's just a noise and then somewhere along the line in a way that is inexplicable you realize no he's actually calling out my name he knows me he loves me he's calling out to waken me hey what if this is all true CS Lewis on one occasion describes how when he made his visit to Oxford I think his first visit to Oxford he was looking forward to it because he knew of its architecture this beauty he said that he came out of the railway station and he turned what in what proved to be the wrong direction and he was walking away from Oxford and as he walked away he was saying to himself this is not as impressive as I thought it was the shop fronts don't look like great there's nothing these buildings are not that very they're not what I thought and then all of a sudden he says oh wait a minute and he stopped in his tracks and he turned around and then as soon as he turned around he saw it it was all there in front of it and then he said you know this was a metaphor of my life I I was I had concluded that all this Christian stuff was really not as inspiring as they said it was but I was walking in entirely the wrong direction it was when by God's grace I turned around the Bible calls that repentance and I acknowledged that all that he had provided was there in him well we could go on a long time but we can't we could but we won't what if it's all truth well we have an answer we have a story to tell to our desperately sick world there's a messed up world I I don't know if you'll find anybody that's not going to admit to that one our world is broken just broken young people are growing up in America with no intentional origin they don't know they don't know where they came from they're a collection of molecules held in suspension they've got no noble destiny towards which they move they've got no path to take through the history of their lives and the story of Jesus is largely ignored it is therefore the privilege and the responsibility of those who affirm these things to go out into the realm of science and art into media into journalism into law into education into the totality of life and live out the reality of the fact that this story is the very essence of what it means for God to come and save us when Paul finished up I talked to the intelligence center of athens recorded for us by Luke in Acts chapter 17 when he finally reached his his closing paragraph this is what he said he said God has overlooked the times of ignorance and now he commands all people everywhere to repent to turn around because he's fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead he says here at the very heart of it all how do we know that his sacrifice is accepted by the resurrection how do we know that God will have the final word because Jesus rose from the dead and Luke then tells us now when they heard of the resurrection of the Dead some mocked but others said we will hear you again about this and so Paul went out from them and some men joined him and believed among them were also were dionysius the areopagite a woman named amorous and some others with him it was a particularly successful evangelistic talk I mean that's the inference isn't it here you've got one of the greatest preachers in the world takes on the intelligence he of the time lays it out for them with masterful skill reaches his end and he says and you know the issue here is the fact that Jesus Christ is alive from the dead and the people said you've gotta be kidding me I can't believe an intelligent person like you would be still trotting out that same stuff that was the response in Athens and frankly that's the response in Cleveland some of you are going to walk out and say the same thing and when they heard about the resurrection they said now that's silly some said well I don't know maybe we'll go again next Easter if we're still alive and then maybe there's a Dionysius here maybe there's a guy from the Areopagus one of the intelligent guys that nobody expects to become a believer is there a Dionysius here and and and it's no longer it's no longer noise to you it's no longer just calling to you no it's your name he's calling to you Dionysius or is it Damaris I don't know I don't know but you'll know because no one ever trusted Christ until they heard their name called William Pitt the Younger who was the Prime Minister of Great Britain at the age of 24 was a good and close friend with Wilberforce the guy who took on the slave trade Wilberforce loved William Pitt Wilberforce believed in Jesus and the resurrection because he loved William he took him to church with him and on one occasion they go to church to hear one of Wilberforce's favorite preachers Wilberforce records that he was stirred by the message helped by it encouraged by it and so on and it's excited as he was as the benediction ended he looked to his friend the Prime Minister next to him to see what his reaction had been and Pitt turned to him and said can you tell me what the world that guy was on about it now it wasn't because Pitts couldn't understand he was an intelligent man but what do we know two men in the same church sitting in the same queue listening to the same preacher listening to the same sermon and one walks out the door and says I don't have a clue with us about I guess William Pitt never heard him call his name have you heard him call your name then trust him discover that in Christ alone you have everything that you need but for life and for death and beyond father thank you that the Bible encourages us to think these things out thank you that we don't have some mindless story to try and promulgate in our community and although we may by Nature turn from it deny it run from it still its insistence the fact that we're even here after all these years considering this question speaks at least in some measure - its abiding truthfulness and validity grant them that if we hear your voice we will know it harden our hearts but actually trust in you before we ask it in Christ's name Amen this message was brought to you from truth for life where the learning is for living learn more about truth for life with alistair beg visit us online at truthfortheworld.org

Channel: Alistair Begg

Views: 58,850

Rating: 4.8857141 out of 5

Keywords: Alistair Begg, Christ's Resurrection, Faith, Gospel, Jesus Christ, Easter

Id: pcXSLCRaIWg

Length: 37min 5sec (2225 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 29 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/EatsTumsLikeCandy]

Love that guy.