Resurrection: What Happened . . . What Didn't?, Part 2

Today on Insight for Living, from Chuck Swindoll. No tabloid will ever print the startling news that the mummified body of Jesus of Nazareth has been discovered in old Jerusalem.

Christians have no carefully embalmed body enclosed in a glass case to worship. Thank God all we have is an empty tomb. How good is that? If you missed Monday's edition of Insight for Living, you didn't get to hear a true story Chuck Swindoll shared with us about a talented rock climber. While hiking alone in Moab, Utah, Aaron Ralston was hopelessly pinned between two boulders.

His freak accident nearly took his life, until days later, he bravely cut his body loose and walked away. You'll need this reference because Chuck will draw a parallel between this climber's escape from death and one that is far greater. Chuck is teaching from Matthew chapter 28 and we begin with prayer. Thank you Father for the body of truth contained on the printed page of the Scriptures.

Guard us from worshiping the page or the print, but the one of whom the print speaks. Turn us again and again with full attention to this one who was miraculously and bodily raised by your power from the grave, victorious over sin and death. And remind us that this gives us hope not just in this life, but in the one to come, especially in the life beyond earth. Minister to us, instruct us, encourage us, deepen us in our walk, dear Father, as we focus fully on the one who is our beautiful Savior, Jesus Christ. He's the reason we come. He is the object of our worship and the subject of our power. He's the object of our worship and the subject of our praise and the reason for our generosity. We give because of him to promote and declare around this world his message and his hope. Thank you for blessing this offering and hearing us as we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask these things. Everyone said, Amen. 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. Early on Sunday morning, as the new day was dawning, two women were making their way to the tomb. 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, 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 no body 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, 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, and they shook with fear when they saw the angel. And 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 body of Jesus. 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, top jaw, and left it there. They saw the wrappings in perfect shape of a body with no body within, lying on the slab. 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.

But now these women are the first to walk in. They look, they see, and they begin to make their way to find the disciples, who reject their message as they bring it to them to begin with. Then they become convinced and go to the grave, and the rest you can read for yourself.

But what's interesting here is that bumped up against the truth of what we just read is an immediate lie planned carefully and quickly by those who wanted no one to think that there had been anything like a resurrection. So verse 11, as the women were on their way some of the guards went into the city. These are the guards that had earlier witnessed what we just described, had seen the angel, had heard the words, and now they come to report, to report what they have seen.

These are these are actual witnesses and they're about to be silenced. Some of the guards went into the city and told the leading priest what had happened. Meeting with the elders, a meeting was called. By the way, remember the elders? They're the ones who called on Pilate the day after Jesus' body had been taken from the cross and placed in a tomb, and they pled with Pilate to place a double security on that tomb area, lest someone steal the body and the disciples start yelling about that there was a resurrection we don't want to have anything to do with that. Here they are, the elders, hearing what's happened. What did the guards say? An angel was there. He rolled a stone back. Jesus was raised from the dead. He's alive. No, no, no, no, no, no, stop.

And what do we read? They gave the soldiers a large bribe. We read at the end of verse 12 and then verse 13, they told the soldiers, you must say, now they give them a script, Jesus' disciples came during the night while we were sleeping and stole the body. Now, if I may, to add a little levity, you don't see anything while you're sleeping, but the guards go, okay, why not? By the way, having served in the military, may I tell you, you don't really want to hear what happens when you sleep on your watch.

That's all I'm going to say. And here, I can't imagine how tough it would be for a Roman soldier announcing, we were all asleep, and while we were sleeping, let us tell you what happened. Disciples came and they rolled a stone away and they pulled that sucker out. I probably didn't say sucker, but they they they pulled that sucker out, and they pulled that sucker out. I probably didn't say sucker, but they they they they pulled that thing out and they hauled that mummy. No, they couldn't take the mummy because the wrapping is still there. Okay, how are we going to cover that?

Anyway, they took it. I love the words of Mark Twain's comment, a lie can go around the world while the truth is still lacing up her boots. This lie took off, and different versions of it, to where you will read more books on the lie than you will on the truth. You will take more courses to convince you of a lie than you can take to convince you of the truth.

Why? Listen to me. It requires faith to believe the truth. For someone to say this is a miracle that actually happened, someone to say this is a miracle that actually happened, you've got to claim that by faith because you cannot prove it. That's why you can believe what I say about Ralston, and it is true.

It's a fact. In fact, if you want to know if he's really lost his right arm, you can make an appointment and visit with him and see the prosthesis and hear the story. In fact, later, they came in with the help of mammoth helicopters, pulled the boulder back, got the arm in hand, cremated it, and gave Ralston the remains from the cremation of the hand and arm. He's got it right there. It doesn't take any faith to believe it.

Just talk to Ralston. But you have to trust what God has said to believe in the resurrection, which doesn't seem to be too difficult since the lives that were changed were not just slightly changed, they were transformed. And the result is all the way through the rest of the New Testament, writers keep coming back to the resurrection as that which turned them toward Christ. The one who stopped Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus was the living Christ who said to him, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.

And it was Paul's realization that he is now encountering the living Christ that changed his entire life. Peter Marshall continues, this is the real meaning of Easter. Forget the bunny rabbit and the colored eggs. Forget the symbols of spring that so often confuse and conceal the real meaning of what we celebrate. No tabloid will ever print the startling news that the mummified body of Jesus of Nazareth has been discovered in old Jerusalem.

Christians have no carefully embalmed body enclosed in a glass case to worship. Thank God all we have is an empty tomb. And as a matter of fact, we don't even know which tomb.

How good is that? Why, if they knew the actual tomb, they'd have built four churches on top of it and had a concession stand leading all the way up to it. But we don't know. They have a place called the Garden Tomb. It was like that, but no one can say for sure that was the tomb. We don't worship the tomb. We like tangibles.

We like things that we could touch and smell and hear. Jesus silently comes out of the tomb. And by the way, when the women saw him and recognized him, I rushed ahead beyond it. They grasped his feet. Remember the theory that it was a phantom that really people have fought, came back from beyond? Phantoms don't have feet you can grasp.

And he later ate with them. Phantoms don't eat and talk with you and make themselves visible. So back to the words of the chaplain. Thank God we have an empty tomb. The glorious fact the empty tomb proclaims to us is this, and I love this. Life for us does not stop when death comes. Death is not a wall, but a door. And eternal life, which may be ours now by faith in Christ, is not interrupted when the soul leaves the body at death.

Why, no. We just keep living on and on and on and on. And as the Gaithers wrote in their piece, because he lives, we shall live also. Is this a great message or what? Is this a magnificent message of hope for you who love that person so much and had that individual with you, near you, to be a part of your life, and you have lost her or him? Do not think they have just moved into nothingness. With Christ, they live on and on and on and on, just like Jesus.

In fact, the whole picture, this is worth hearing. At death, the body stays. We usually bury it or cremate it.

The body remains. The soul goes, the spirit goes to be with the Lord and awaits the resurrection, the next event of the future. And I don't know when, but when Christ returns for us, he will descend from heaven. There will be a shout of the archangel, another messenger. The blast of the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ will rise, meaning their bodies, and they will be joined with their eternal spirit in this reunion. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so shall we ever be with the Lord. Paul ends that great description, the end of 1 Thessalonians 4, with comfort one another with these words. This is comfort. Because he lives, we shall live also.

How much better than they stole his body and we really don't know much since then. And we read at the end of our passage and they still tell that story today. Why? Because the heart would rather believe a lie than the truth, unless it is willing to act on faith. I'll now come to the impasse, much like Ralston came to the cliff and had to drop off as he rappelled down that cliff. Where are you in this? I'm telling you clearly, I'm on the side of the truth that's being written, that has been written. And I urge you who are not to join me and the others around you who are there.

Please bow with me. Please close your eyes. You heard two stories today, both of them are true.

One of a man named Ralston who was trapped with the stone capture and found a way to find release from it. And you believe that. You've heard another story of one who was in a grave placed there dead who came out alive. You're not sure you can believe that. The difference is whether you're willing to act on faith without visible evidence, seeing a picture, hearing the words yourself, being at the very tomb, and witnessing even the angel in all that transpired.

Can't give that back to you. You take that by faith or you reject it. It's like knowing Jesus personally, you either trust him as your savior or you don't. You either say, Lord Jesus Christ, I'm yours and I want to be fully yours, or you walk away saying, I'd rather build my life I'd rather build my life on hearsay, man-made stories, skeptics, explanations. He who has the Son of God has life. He who does not does not have life, but the wrath of God abides on you. You're surrounded by those today who have trusted in Jesus and they've done so by faith. They've not seen angels.

They've not heard Jesus talk, but they believe the printed truth from the Word of God. I invite you to do the same right now so that you will be able to say because he lives, I will live also. Thank you, dear Father, for telling us the truth.

Thank you for not dressing it up with a lot of needless complicated details, but spelling it out in terms we can understand and then giving it to us in a manner that we can grasp and claim and stake our lives on. Thank you for these many who believe and I pray for those who do not, that you would remove from them a peace within and rest through the night until they finally find their peace in you, whom to know is life everlasting. Now to him who is able to guard us from stumbling and to present us faultless before the presence of your glory with exceeding great joy, to the only wise God, our Savior, be glory, majesty, dominion, power, forever and ever and ever and ever. Through Christ our Lord, we pray, and all God's people say, Amen. Amen. Let me repeat that verse one more time. John wrote these words, He who has the Son of God has life. He who does not, does not have life. The decision, of course, is up to you.

Your little brother, John, the decision, of course, is up to you. You're listening to the Bible teaching of Chuck Swindoll and this is Insight for Living. And to learn more about this ministry, please visit us online at insightworld.org. If today's the day you decided to accept God's forgiveness and follow Him, we want to point you to the wide variety of learning resources at your disposal. Each of these resources is designed to help you grow in your walk with God, whether you're a brand new Christian or you've been walking with God for a long time.

Take a look at the helpful resources found at insight.org. If you've been listening to Chuck teach the Bible for a long time, you might be surprised to learn that our current study in Matthew has never before been shared on Insight for Living. Well, along with this new teaching series, we're pleased to offer a commentary on Matthew as well. It's published in two hardbound volumes and it's called Swindoll's Living Insights on Matthew.

These two books are laid out in an easy to grasp format, giving historical context, practical application, and even pictures and illustrations. So to purchase Swindoll's Living Insights on Matthew right now, call us. If you're listening in the U.S., dial 1-800-772-8888 or go to insight.org slash offer. It's your generous donations that empower Insight for Living to deliver these daily visits with Chuck. When you give, you're participating in the Great Commission of Jesus by joining us in an all-out effort to make disciples around the world. If you're listening in the United States, call 1-800-772-8888 or give a donation online today by going to insight.org. Join us when Chuck Swindoll presents his closing study in the book of Matthew, Wednesday on Insight for Living. The preceding message, Resurrection, What Happened, What Didn't, was copyrighted in 2018 and 2021, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2021 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.