Transcript of message from TV Broadcast 807 -- taken from Closed Captioning Text

-- Brother Phil Enlow: Now, this does happen to be Easter and I don't see anything wrong at all with preaching upon the subject that is typically preached...and that has to do with the resurrection. You know God...when He gave the Old Covenant, He did not simply expect people to believe because a man named Moses stood before 'em and gave certain words.

They saw God's hand in Egypt. They saw Him dish out 12 or 10 terrible plagues against Egypt and then open the Red Sea before them. They saw the Egyptian army drowned. When they went to Mt. Sinai, the whole mountain was on fire, was shaking, and there...it was a terrifying experience to the people. They knew that a supernatural being was there talking to them, and they said, Moses you go find out what He wants and come tell us.

And when Moses at the end of his life looked back and was exhorting the people, knowing that he himself was not going to be able to lead them on into the land, he spent the entire book of Deuteronomy basically exhorting them as to what they were to do. And over and over and over again he says, look back. Don't forget what God did. You know that God is real. This same God that you saw deliver from the Egyptians is the One who is going to lead you into the land.

Well, when it comes to New Testament truth, the evidence is overwhelming that if we can...if we absolutely, honestly look at it. How many of you know that the book of Luke and the book of Acts were written by the same person? Do you know why they were written? If you look at the beginning of Luke and also of Acts, it's very evident that Luke was writing to somebody of noble birth, a man named Theophilus. Obviously Theophilus had heard a great deal about Jesus and about the Christian teaching about the...he had become aware of the expansion of the church, and so he wanted to know something about it.

And so Luke took in hand to really set down in order...this is what happened. This is the life of Jesus. This is who He is and what He's about. And then, of course, the Book of Acts...just turn over there. There's a phrase that jumped out at me. Praise God!

( pages turning ).

Folks, if this doesn't go anywhere, I'm counting on you to help me out here, because we do...I agree with Ron. We want the Lord's Word. And I don't have any right to just assume that I've always got it. But in any case, he starts the Book of Acts. "In my former book, Theophilus..." referring back to the Gospel, "...I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs..." (NIV).

Basically he's saying, Theophilus, there is tremendous, overwhelming evidence that the message of the Gospel is true. And it's like Paul said. If Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead, then we have a vain faith. We have no reason to be here this morning. If Jesus did not rise, then nothing He said is true and all we have is exactly what some people think we have...just a religion of our own beliefs, no better, no worse than anybody else.

In fact, some of them would say it's worse, because we're so exclusive about it. We believe that Jesus is the only way by which men can come to God. That's exactly what His apostles said. That's exactly what He said. "...I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

Is that true? Can we believe that? Is there evidence that we should believe that? Or are we just dependent upon somebody standing here and with great fervor preaching these words, and them stirring people's emotions and saying, yes, I want to believe? What foundation do we have to believe that what we believe is true? And that's what the message of the resurrection is all about, because it was at the heart and the center of the message that was preached in the first century.

And, basically...you know you've got a lot of people that try to come against the whole idea that Jesus rose from the dead and it's pretty obvious what their reasoning is, because if it's true, they're responsible. That's it. This is the question I want to put to everybody. If Jesus really did rise from the dead as this Book tells us, then we have no other reasonable course but to do exactly what Ron is talking about...to serve Him, to walk His way, to set out eyes beyond this life, to set our eyes heavenward to hear the heavenly calling and to follow it with all of our hearts.

( congregational amens ).

And if you are one who is not a follower of Jesus, there is evidence in the historical record that demands a verdict on your part. What is your verdict? That's the question. If Jesus rose from the dead, then you are either on the side of one who will follow Him and believe what He says, or you have set yourself against Him. But this is the evidence. You're on the jury today. What's your verdict on this subject?

Now we know that Jesus Himself on many occasions, before all of this took place, told His disciples that He was going to be betrayed, He was going to be crucified, and that He would rise again from the dead after three days. I'll just give you one example in Matthew 16.

( pages turning ).

Matthew 16. You know this was the occasion when Jesus asked the disciples who He was. Now people had a lot of opinions about Him. They thought He was a prophet. They thought He was...all kinds of natural opinions, some of them sounded very flattering, very...good things to say and all of that, but that wasn't who He was. He wasn't just another prophet. He was the Son of God! He was the One sent by God to the world, to bring Light into the world. And so Peter spoke up and said, "...You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

In verse 17, "Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church..." not Peter, but the rock of who He was and the revelation of who He was, "...and the gates of Hades will not overcome it..." and so forth.

Verse 21, it says, "From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life." You can find other occasions where He said the same thing. And so Jesus Himself declared what was going to happen.

But you know, the interesting thing is, when it happened, the disciples didn't remember that, did they? There wasn't a single one of His followers that at that point remembered what He'd said. But there was somebody who remembered. Do you remember who that was? Who can tell me who it was that remembered that Jesus had said this?

( congregation inaudible ).

No, it wasn't John. Praise God! Any of you read your Bibles?

( laughter ).

You've got an assignment today. Go back and read the accounts of His death and resurrection. I'll tell you, it's really something. And you have to kind of put 'em all together to get the whole picture. One will show you certain aspects of it, and another one, others. But when He died, and when He was buried, some of the Jews remembered that He had said that He was going to rise again the third day.

And what did they do? They went to Pilot and said, hey, this deceiver said He was gonna rise after the third day, so I'll tell you, if we don't protect that tomb, things are gonna get a whole lot worse than they were already, because His disciples are gonna sneak in there, steal His body and then we'll be in even worse trouble. So Pilot said, go ahead. Put a seal on it, put a guard there, seal it 'til the third day. And that's how the seal...that's why the soldiers were there. The disciples didn't even remember.

Think about the effect of the crucifixion on the disciples. They were discouraged, saddened, confused, frightened men. Every one of them fled from Jesus in the garden when He was arrested except Peter. And Peter followed afar off and he just sort of hung around the periphery of what was going on just so he could kind of see what was going on.

And Jesus had warned him, you remember, before the rooster crows you're gonna deny three times that you even know Me. And that happened. A little servant girl came along and said, you're one of them, aren't you? He said, no, no, no, I don't even know this man. And by the time it was over, someone else said, yes, you are, and he basically called down curses on him and said, may God strike me dead if I've ever known this man. I mean he just really...petrified, terrified. And I'll tell you, you and I, apart from God's grace and strength, we don't know what we might do. We need God.

( congregational amens ).

Here was a man who had failed to pray and to get himself ready for a situation that he'd been warned about. He couldn't handle it. I'll tell you what. But what this does reveal is the state of mind of the disciples, of His followers...because the idea that, well, the disciples came and stole Him away, and that's why He wasn't in the tomb is a saying that was actually passed down among the Jews. It was one of the explanations that people try to come up with to explain away the resurrection. Oh, He was just...the disciples stole His body.

Well I'll tell you, they weren't in any condition to do it, and Peter, on top of the fact that he was terrified, now he was filled with guilt, wasn't he? These people were in no condition to try to come up and mount some kind of an operation, were they, to go into the tomb and somehow get around the soldiers?

Can you imagine them coming in the middle of the night and the soldiers are snoring, which is not very likely to start with, because they were trained men and they were absolutely...they had a responsibility and it was your life if you didn't carry out your responsibility in their armies. And then having this big old stone to roll away...and then you're gonna go in and instead of just grabbing the body and running, you're going to unwrap the thing, because it was all wrapped up in the burial clothes that they had. You're gonna unwrap it, rewrap it so it looks like He just sort of disappeared through them, and then take the naked body and run, and just sneak out of there. That doesn't make any sense, does it? See that evidence doesn't stack up.

You know, there's all kinds of crazy people around. We had a minister...so-called minister that actually lectured in a lecture series out at the college recently, who was one of these ultra-ultra liberals who's trying to redefine what he calls Christianity to make it fit into the modern world. His idea about what happened was that Peter was so saddened by the crucifixion, that he just imagined Jesus back. He just...like it was all a figment of his disturbed imagination. I'll tell you what, can you imagine a church being built on such a foundation? I'll tell you what...but I'll tell you, we have got a solid foundation in history!

( congregational amens ).

God has recorded for us so many facts in this Scripture that make it obvious that we have a solid foundation for our faith today. You've got people going around today saying, well, He didn't really die. And that's how they could talk with Him later. He just sort of swooned, He looked like He was dead and then later on they snuck Him out of there and then later on He revived.

I'll tell you what, you remember what happened when the Jews...because the Sabbath was coming on, they didn't want any of these dead bodies to be on the cross, did they? That would have been a defilement of their Sabbath and they wanted to get these bodies down and out of there and all of that behind them and taken care of. So they asked Pilot for permission to break their legs, so that they would go ahead and die, because a whole lot of their staying alive was actually being able to push up a little bit, and breathe. And so he said, yeah, go ahead and do it.

And so they went around, but Jesus was already dead, and they said the soldier was surprised. And in one place, this is after He was dead, they went ahead...and so they didn't break His legs. You know the Scripture said not one of His bones will be broken. That was a fulfillment of Old Testament Scripture. And then another one was, it talked about Him being pierced. Well a soldier...the man stuck his spear in the side. What came out?

( congregational response ).

Blood and water. That was an indication of death. That was proof that He was already dead. Already the blood and the lymph and all that stuff had separated out. There's absolutely historical evidence that Jesus did in fact die. There's nobody that could've survived what He went through anyway. And it was the plan and the purpose of God that He should die. Praise God!

But I'll tell you, the one thing that sets real Biblical Christianity...and I'm gonna set that in distinction with a whole lot of religion that uses the name...but real Biblical Christianity that sets it apart from every other...or every religion on the planet...is the fact that our Savior lives!

( congregational amens ).

There are many who follow the teachings of someone who was a wise man from the past. You can name a whole lot of religions and they have their teachers. They gave out all their moral ideas and said this is the way you ought to live, because that's what we're talking about this morning. We ought to live a certain way. Why? Why should we be followers of Jesus? Why should we believe what He said in His Word? Why should we do what He says and live self-sacrificial lives and do all the things that we do? You know, Paul said, if Jesus isn't risen from the dead, then "...we are of all men most miserable." (KJV).

( congregational amens ).

Why do I do, Paul says, why do I do the things that I do? Why do I put my life in jeopardy every day if Jesus is not risen? We have no hope if He didn't rise from the dead.

But praise God! So here we've got the disciples...every one of them is scared to death. They're huddled in a room with the doors locked. But you know, there were some ladies that had followed Jesus and been among the crowd, the company of people that followed Him around and they were ladies that particularly saw to things like washing, and cleaning, and serving, and making sure they had meals prepared so that they could do the work. Mary Magdalene was one of them. There was a couple of other ladies in particular that had taken note of where He was buried. By the way, does anybody know who buried Him? Lord have mercy! Read your Bibles!

( congregational response ).

Joseph of Arimathaea was one of 'em. But he had a helper, didn't he? And the helper was Nicodemus. The same Nicodemus that had come to Jesus by night in John chapter 3. Both of them were members of the Council. Both of them had quietly dissented from what the Council had determined to do, to kill Him. And so they went boldly...it mentions Joseph in particular. He went boldly to Pilot when he found out he was dead and asked for the body. Pilot was surprised. Is He dead already?

So he gave him leave and he went and he put Him in a brand new tomb. They wrapped Him all up and put Him in the tomb and rolled a great big stone. Well, it says some of the ladies were following to see where He was gonna be buried and they took note of it and they went back and they said we're gonna prepare spices. We're going to anoint His body.

But the next day was the Sabbath, so they waited 'cause it wasn't the right thing to do under their beliefs to go out on the Sabbath day and to do something like that. And so it says, early on the first day of the week they went to the tomb, though. And as they went, it says in one account, they were talking...what are we gonna do? There's a big stone. How are we gonna roll that stone away? And they got there and what did they find?

( congregational response ).

The stone was already rolled away, wasn't it? Praise God! And you read another account and you'll find out that all of a sudden, early in the morning there was an earthquake and an angel suddenly came down, rolled the stone away and the keepers were just...I mean the soldiers were terrified and they just fell over like they were dead men.

( laughing ).

And so there's the stone rolled away and an angel's in the tomb. In one place he was sitting on, and another time he was inside, another time there was two of 'em. So I'll tell you, God gave witness. And so when the ladies arrived the tomb was empty! But you know what, God didn't roll the stone away to let Jesus out. God had the stone rolled away to let others in to see what had happened, because when they went in there, there was the linen clothes laying there just exactly as His body had been laid, the only thing is He wasn't in them any more. Praise God!

And so the ladies were just...my God, we've come out here expecting to anoint a dead body and all of sudden there was angels. They had forgotten all about what Jesus had said. I'm gonna rise again. There's no possible, reasonable explanation that His disciples had anything to do with this.

And so they went running back to the disciples and told them excitedly, we had a vision of angels. They said, He's risen and all this stuff, and then what happened is the disciples said, oh boy, that's wonderful! Praise God, let's go to the ends of the earth...no, they didn't believe 'em.

Not only were the disciples incapable in their present state of doing anything to engineer what the Jews said they engineered, they didn't even believe their own people and actually Mary Magdalene, in particular, had even seen the Lord. I think they all had at one point. They had all actually encountered the Lord Himself! And they came back...they didn't believe it.

And you follow through all the accounts and you see that Jesus made several appearances on that first day. Later on in the day, there were the two who were walking on the road to Emmaus. And they were walking along and they were sad and they were talking about all the things that had happened, and Jesus walked up beside them.

But by some means, He hid who He was. It was not apparent to them who He really was. And so He inquires and said, what are you talking about? What's all this? And they said, are you a stranger? You don't even know what's been going on. We're talking about Jesus, a prophet of God who had done great and wonderful things and we thought He was gonna bring the kingdom to Israel and we thought all these things. And He just was crucified. Oh they didn't know what to do. They were just saddened and full of unbelief. They said...people have said He's risen. We don't know what to think, basically was the bottom line.

And Jesus said, oh fools...you can read this toward the end of John. Oh fools, slow of heart to believe all that the Father...all that the Lord has said. I think that might have been Luke actually. But anyway, wherever it was, it was at the end of one of the Gospels. And so He began, throughout the Old Testament, beginning from the beginning and went right through the Old Testament and showed them what it said about Him.

And they got right to the place where their house was and Jesus acted like He was going on. You know, I'll tell you what, we're gonna have to make an invitation, aren't we? Jesus is gonna make like He's going on with you. He's not gonna force His way into anybody's life. When He comes to make Himself known to us, I'll tell you, there comes a point where we're gonna have to say, come. Don't go on. Don't leave me. Oh, "Pass me not, O gentle Savior..."

( congregational amens ).

Praise God! "...Hear my humble cry!

( congregational amens ).

Oh, don't pass me by. But there was something...there was just something about Him that got to their hearts. And so they said, no come. It's late in the afternoon, come on, let's come in and have a meal, and so they got in there and you know what happened. He broke bread and gave thanks and all of a sudden they realized who He was! And what happened?

( snapping fingers ).

Disappeared out of their sight. All right and so, boy, it's seven miles now from Jerusalem. I don't know how they got back there, but they got back there mighty quick. They took off back to Jerusalem. There were gonna tell everybody, boy, we've seen the Lord!

And they got back there, they found the disciples in a locked room. Now that tells me right off, they're still pretty scared. They're still pretty confused. But they're talking...they're talking about what the women have seen, and not only that, they said, He's appeared to Peter too. So sometime during the day, the Lord appeared to Peter alone, by himself. I guess alone is by himself, isn't it?

( laughter ).

That's redundant all over again.

( laughter ).

Praise God! But the Lord appeared to Peter. What an act of love and mercy that was! Peter, of all people, who would have just been filled with guilt and shame for what he'd done. The Lord made a special effort to reach out to him.

( congregational amens ).

I'll tell you, He'll reach out to you too, if you'll turn your heart to Him.

( congregational amens ).

Praise God! He knows what we're made out of. That's what salvation is all about.

( congregational amens ).

Praise God! We've got a living Savior who doesn't come to us with condemnation, but with love. Oh we've got to face what we are. But He's taken care of what we are. He's done all that's necessary. Before He died, He cried, it's finished! It's finished. Everything the Father had sent Him to do was done. Praise God!

But why should we believe any of it? And this is what we're talking about this morning is the reason we should believe in what Jesus said and all that He did and all that His death means. So anyway, they get the...the folks from...Cleopas and his wife, presumably came back from wherever the town was, I can't even think now.

-- Congregation: Emmaus.

-- Brother Phil Enlow: Emmaus. Thank you. They came back from their house and they found, as I said, the disciples were in this locked room. They were discussing all of these things and the door is locked, and all of sudden there's Jesus standing there. How did You get in? I'll tell you, when you've got that kind of body He came out from the tomb with, you don't need keys to get through doors. The same Jesus that had disappeared when the two disciples...the two people were talking to him at the table there, was suddenly able to appear in their midst and He was there. And they were terrified!

You know their natural reaction is what most of us would have been. The same thing they had on the lake. Oh we're seeing a ghost! They were scared to death. And Jesus immediately said, don't be afraid. How many times in the Scriptures does the Lord say to us, don't be afraid?

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