Resurrection: What Happened . . . What Didn't?, Part 1

From the beginning of the year until now, Chuck Swindoll has presented a verse-by-verse study through the Gospel according to Matthew. And today on Insight for Living, he'll invite us to follow along in the final chapter of Matthew, where we read about Jesus' parting word to His disciples. This is a brand-new teaching series that concludes on Friday's program.

It's called the King of Kings. To set the stage for what's ahead, we'll take a moment to read the passage at hand. Chuck titled his message, Resurrection, What Happened, What Didn't. We are rapidly moving toward the end of our study in Matthew. We have come to the final chapter, Matthew 28. I'll be reading from the New Living Translation, verses 1 through 15 in this last chapter, which is normally a passage you would read or pay attention to on Easter Sunday. But every Lord's Day is a resurrection day of celebration, and so that is today as well. We think of the marvelous, miraculous bodily resurrection of Jesus from the grave, and there are always new truths to discover. Matthew 28, verse 1, Early on Sunday morning, as the new day was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went out to visit the tomb. Suddenly there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven, rolled aside the stone, and sat on it. His face shone like lightning, and his clothing was as white as snow. The guards shook with fear when they saw him, and they fell into a dead faint.

Then the angel spoke to the women, Don't be afraid, he said. I know you're looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He isn't here. He is risen from the dead, just as he said would happen. Come, see where his body was lying. And now, go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and he is going ahead of you to Galilee.

You will see him there. Remember what I've told you. Verse 11, as the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and told the leading priests what had happened. A meeting with the elders was called, and they decided to give the soldiers a large bribe. They told the soldiers, you must say, Jesus' disciples came during the night while we were sleeping, and they stole his body.

If the governor hears about it, we'll stand up for you so you won't get in trouble. So the guards accepted the bribe, and said what they were told to say. Their story spread widely among the Jews, and they still tell it today. Amazingly, more believe that lie than believe the truth. More believe the words of critics and skeptics than believe those who were living in that day, and never before or afterwards lied to us, but somehow think they lied to us about the resurrection.

Not so. How grateful we are for the truth to live by and to die with. You're listening to Insight for Living.

To study the book of Matthew with Chuck Swindoll, be sure to download his Searching the Scriptures studies by going to insightworld.org slash studies. And now the message from Chuck titled, Resurrection, What Happened, What Didn't. They thought he was gone forever. His situation was absolutely impossible. His friends felt that they had seen him for the last time. Even his mother doubted that she would ever, ever see her son again. Along with all the other odds against him, there was this massive stone that must have weighed over, well over half a ton that pushed at him and kept him from walking free again. It was awful. Tragic, in fact. It really looked like he was gone forever.

His name was Aaron Lee Ralston, 27-year-old Phi Beta Kappa student from Carnegie Mellon University. He loved exciting things and so he took up mountain climbing. So devoted to it that just the normal kind of mountain climbing didn't really interest him. He was determined to climb all of Colorado's 14ers, those peaks that ranged 14,000 feet and higher. But to Ralston, the challenge was intensified because he would only climb at night, preferably after midnight.

And always in the winter months, when it was snowing and when there was ice and strong winds. On this particular night, he was climbing in the Blue John Canyon up near Moab, Utah. As he was crawling across a huge boulder, another one inadvertently slid loose and fell on him, pinning his right arm and hand against another stone. Pushing the boulder off was an impossibility. Chipping away at the stone with his free hand, a waste of time. He wasn't even able to use his climbing gear to dislodge that massive boulder that lay pressed against his arm. He was stuck there for five days, began to dehydrate.

To survive, he drank his own urine and finally carved his name in the stone, as well as his date of birth and what he presumed was his day of death. Delirious and desperate since his hand by now had died, as well as the wrist area and on up into his forearm, he made an incredible decision. He would cut that off his body. He would amputate his own forearm just above the wrist, including, of course, his hand.

All he had was a knife with the dull blade, a small pair of pliers. And with that, he broke both bones in the arm. He tugged and pulled away at the tough tendons and sawed the skin. And finally, after an hour, accomplished the amputation. He was free.

He had no cell phone to call for help. It was an eight mile walk back to his vehicle, which included at one point a 65 foot sheer cliff that he would repel down using his good arm and good hand. With the rope that he had, he made it.

He made it. And by the way, since then, with the prosthesis now in place of what was once his hand, he has now scaled all the 14ers. And the last time I read about him, he was making his plans to climb Everest.

29,028 foot Mount Everest, the highest mountain on the planet. Now, with that in mind, have I got a story for you. If you think cutting yourself free from a boulder by cutting off your own hand and forearm is a remarkable thing because you have lost life in that part of your limb, how about walking out of a grave having lost your life earlier? If you think it's remarkable what Ralston did there near Moab, Utah, how about the miracle that occurred outside Jerusalem? So significant and so miraculous that he would be risen from the dead that immediately skeptics got together and planned a lie about it. To this day, it's being told you were taught it at your university.

I heard it in my high school. So did many of you. How much easier to believe a lie than to go with what one would call an unexplainable miracle. Some are trying to prove he didn't really die. He really sort of swooned and then came back to life and somehow pushed away a ton, the tonnage of that stone and slipped out into the night. Others believe he did in fact die, but he was stolen. His enemies didn't want to steal him because they didn't want anybody to think he was raised from the dead and his disciples couldn't have because that place was so well guarded and the stone was sealed. And what would they do with a dead body anyway? And by the way, they've never found the cadaver, the skeleton to this day.

Don't think they haven't looked. So now we're left with a decision and you and I can read evidence as we will today and we must come to terms with what it says and determine either Matthew decided when he got to the end of his story to lie to us or he continues to tell us the truth as does Mark, as does Luke, and 60 years later as does John in even greater detail. So you're left with a decision.

You're going to believe the prof who tried to convince you of some fake news. I had to throw that in. Or you're going to believe early on Sunday morning as the new day was dawning, two women were making their way to the tomb. Suddenly, don't miss that, the word conveys the idea of total unexpected, truly unexpected. They expected guards, silence, and death.

Were they in for a surprise? Suddenly, there was a great earthquake. This is another earthquake beyond the one we mentioned last time that occurred at his death. There's now an earthquake and an angel is here moving back the stone, not to let Jesus out. He's already out. But to let us in, to see that the grave is empty.

There's nobody in there. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Before I go too quickly into the story, let's just stay with the angel. An angel of the Lord came down from heaven.

Stop. I have never seen an angel. I have never heard an angel. Though they are all about us because they are invisible supernatural creatures, curious about our worship and learning from us as we worship, their appearances are rare in spite of what you may read on many books about angels and many people who see them all the time. May have been a bad taco the night before.

May have been a really good imagination. But this is a real angel that is frightening. This angel is from heaven. His abode, all angels by the way are male. Ungalas is a masculine ending. And they're all adults. There are no baby angels shooting little arrows on Valentine's Day nonsense. These are all adult.

They're all incredibly strong. The word means messenger. That's what they do. They run errands for the God of heaven. As in this case, he was sent to convey the message of the resurrection. It's exactly what he does.

They are wonderfully obedient. Before we see what he says, please observe his face, verse 3, shown like lightning. You and I have not studied lightning. We only see what we call a flash of lightning. But it's bright, bright enough to light up the middle of the night as it flashes through the sky. But this face is like that kind of light. You've never seen a face like it.

And also the garments worn are white as snow. I can't imagine what the voice must have been like. Like rolling thunder maybe.

Like a massive waterfall plunging down hundreds of feet. But the voice itself is frightening. The face is frightening. The appearance of one that suddenly is there is frightening. That's why most often the first words from an angel's lips are do not be afraid because we are normally as earthlings afraid of supernatural creatures.

They are rare. And they are frightening in our terms. Though we have nothing to be afraid of with these messengers of God sent most often to help. Sometimes to warn, occasionally to judge. But here is one who comes with a message and they shook with fear when they saw him.

Who did? Look at the verse. Verse four it is tells us the guards shook with fear when they saw the angel. They fell down as if in a dead faint says this translation.

Then the angel spoke to the women. Look at the words. Don't be afraid. I'm not here to hurt you.

I'm here to convey a message to you. I know you were looking for Jesus who was crucified. He isn't here referring to the tomb.

He is risen from the dead just as he said would happen. I know I'm going over this in an almost tedious manner. But this is the truth.

Matthew records. This is what the critic attacks. So hear the truth.

Give it a chance. The angel says he isn't here. He's risen from the dead just as he said would happen. So the angel has communicated his message. Now look at what he says next. Come. See where his body was lying.

Again, stop. Joseph and Nicodemus had taken the limp lifeless body of Jesus wrapped in mummy-like fashion, which is how they embalmed the bodies in the first century, certainly in the Middle East, and had brought the limp body into the tomb, Joseph's new tomb, laid the mummy-like body on this slab with a headpiece around tying the chin up against the jaw, the top jaw, and left it there. Now if Jesus has been raised from the dead and is out of the tomb, what does it mean come and see where his body was lying? His body is out. So what are they going to look at?

A slab? That really would tell them nothing. What they saw told them everything.

Listen carefully. They saw the wrappings in perfect shape of a body with no body within, lying on the slab. Had there been a kidnapping of the body, no one either would have or could have re-wrapped a hollow space where there is no body. You'd throw it aside like you'd throw aside covers in the morning off the bed.

Listen to the late chaplain of the Senate, Peter Marshall, in his work titled The First Easter. They saw the linen wrappings lying, not unwound and carefully folded as some people think, not thrown aside as a covering when one rises from bed, but lying there on the stone slab in the shape of a body. Mute but eloquent evidence that a living organism had come out. He continues, the grave clothes lay like the shriveled shell of a cocoon left behind when the moth has emerged and hoisted her bright sails in the sunshine. Or more accurately, like a glove from which the hand has been removed and the fingers of which still retain the shape of the hand.

The late Meryl Tenney while teaching at Wheaton College wrote this, the word used to describe the head cloth does not connote a flat, folded square, but a ball of cloth bearing the appearance of being rolled around an object like a head that was no longer there. Now we've got something. When the angel says, come, look for yourself, this is the same evidence that Peter and John both had the foot race to the tomb shortly after this event right here that John tells us about in depth and they walk in and you can see the men in silence staring at this evidence. It's eerie.

Unless you remember, he's the one who said, I will be crucified and the third day I will rise from the dead. And we read that as John looks at the evidence and Peter it clicked. The light went on and they put it together.

It's happened. Up until then they never expected. When Jesus told him he'd be raised, they were so struck by his death they could not tolerate anything more. It so grieved them to think they would be without him. They couldn't imagine anything like this. No one had ever before been resurrected from death.

Some had been resuscitated but never resurrected. Presenting his final week of studies in The Gospel According to Matthew, you're listening to the Bible teaching of Chuck Swindoll. And to learn more about the Ministry of Insight for Living, please visit us online at insightworld.org. Our study through the book of Matthew started almost a year ago.

It's a brand new teaching series never before presented on this program. And in the final five programs of this expositional verse-by-verse study, I want to remind you that Chuck wrote a comprehensive commentary on Matthew as well. And now's the time to request your copy while it's fresh on your mind. Because of the scope of this study, the commentary on Matthew comes in two hardbound volumes for a combined total of nearly 700 pages of insight and application.

For anyone who loves the Bible and wants to learn more, this two-volume set on Matthew will provide insight and application for many years to come. It's called Swindoll's Living Insights on Matthew. And you can purchase a copy right now by calling us.

If you're listening in the U.S., dial 1-800-772-8888. Or to view these books or to place your order quickly and efficiently, go directly online to insight.org slash offer. You often hear me say it's not the purchase of products that sustains this nonprofit ministry. Instead, Insight for Living is made possible through the voluntary gifts of friends like you who value Chuck's teaching and want to share this program with others. So thanks for remembering the importance of your generous support, especially as we enter the holiday season. To give a contribution by phone, call us. If you're listening in the United States, dial 1-800-772-8888. Or to give a donation online, visit us at insight.org. These final messages in our study of Matthew will culminate by listening to the Great Commission of Jesus to make disciples around the world. And when you give to Insight for Living, your contribution is applied directly to that all-important cause. Once again, you can also give a much needed donation on our convenient mobile app or give directly online by visiting insight.org. Listen when Chuck Swindoll continues to describe the resurrection, what happened and what didn't, Tuesday on Insight for Living.