Hello, this is Daniel Haughtry. I am pastor at the Kerwin Baptist Church in Kernersville, North Carolina. Sunday, April the 28th at 5 p.m. We are having Church at the Park.
This is at Harman Park, downtown Kernersville. We're going to have hot dog drinks, bounce houses for the kids. We have a hand bell choir that will be performing. Our choir will be singing. We have a Christian illusionist coming, and we just want you to know that you're invited. Again, it's April the 28th at 5 p.m. Church at the Park.
Downtown Kernersville at Harman Park. Thank you for all the hard work to our sound men too. You know how hard it is to get a large group full of mics and getting them all balanced and different things, and everything that's done. They have to practice with them and get mic checks and all that. And our sound men have done a fantastic job today running screens, running mics, doing all that.
A lot of work goes into everything, and we are appreciative of that. Thank you for being faithful today, and we're going to be mindful of your time. I'm sure you have lunch plans hopefully with your family if possible. And if not, maybe you have some good friends to be able to.
And if you're lucky, maybe you'll get to go on your own. Anyway, Luke chapter 24 today. Luke chapter 24.
And we, Brother Frank has already read our passage and wanted you to see a picture today. And some of you may or may not be familiar with this, but this is the first electronic computer. It was called the capital E-N-I-A-C, ENIAC computer.
It was turned on in 1947. Wow. That was the computer of yesterday. And this is the computer of today. Now what's interesting, it's a little bit different, isn't it? And imagine if all of our phones were like that.
We had to carry that around all day long and push a big cart. Hello? You kind of thing.
Can you hear me now? Anyway, if you compare the iPhone to the ENIAC computer, the iPhone is 10,000 times more complex. That looks more complex to me, doesn't it? But this is 10,000 times more complex. If you compare the iPhone to the ENIAC, the iPhone is 2,000 times smaller. The iPhone is 10 million times faster than the ENIAC computer. The iPhone consumes 200,000 times less power than the first computer. The iPhone, believe it or not, is 10,000 times cheaper.
No, they're still expensive, but 10,000 times cheaper. Now, I want you to see what a few people said about this first computer in 1947. In 1949, Popular Mechanics printed an article and it said this, computers in the future may weigh no more than one and a half tons. Shows what they know, right? Thomas Watson who was the chairman of IBM in 1943, he said this, I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.
The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall in 1957, he said this, I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people. And I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out this year. Somebody got fired. Ken Olson who was the president, chairman, and founder of Digital Equipment Corp in 1977 says this, there is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home. You know what's interesting? All these individuals found it very hard to believe that computers would be a practical thing for everyday use. They couldn't wrap their mind around it because they couldn't see it. They just couldn't fathom it because they hadn't seen it done.
It just didn't seem possible. May I say this? Just because you can't wrap your head around it doesn't mean it won't happen. You know, we have a problem going on in 2024. A lot of things in God's Word are being attacked. Unfortunately, they're being attacked by God's people, supposedly God's people. We now have a generation of church people that are arguing through everything in the Bible.
If that makes you feel good, go at it. But I don't know about you, I want to enter heaven one day, having been faithful to His Word, not ripping it apart to make it say what I would want it to say. There's a lot of people that have questions. They just can't wrap their mind around the resurrection. Now they can fathom that there would be a man, what would you call it, radical enough that he might would be willing to go and die on a cross for what he thought he believed. There's a lot of people that can fathom that.
Well, I'm sure that that might have happened in history. There are other people that died for their causes, whether right or wrong or whatever the case might be. But I will tell you one thing that is being greatly attacked, and I believe the roots of that is Satan. What is being attacked is the resurrection. Because the resurrection is what changes everything. They have questions, and we get this a lot, why do you Christians insist on the resurrection of Jesus? Why do you have to believe in a scientifically unproven occurrence? Isn't Jesus dying for your sins complete without a resurrection? One guy asked me this one time, why bring this supernatural stuff into this conversation? You know, there's a lot of people that don't believe in the resurrection because they can't wrap their mind around it.
Because they didn't see it, they don't believe it. I want to explain to you this morning just briefly why Satan is attacking the resurrection so desperately. Number one, I want you to see that this morning that if the resurrection is true, then all the words of Jesus are true. Now listen to me, if the resurrection is not true, then we can doubt everything Jesus said. Satan knows that if he can get you to doubt the resurrection of Jesus Christ, then he can get you to doubt anything in God's Word.
Because if you can't trust all of it, then how do you know that you can trust any of it? Look at Matthew 17, 22, I want you to see this verse. And while they abode in Galilee, Jesus said unto them, the Son of Man shall be betrayed into the hands of men, and they shall kill him, and the third day he shall be raised again.
And they were exceeding sorry. You see, Jesus said first that he would be resurrected. He said he would die, he said he would be crucified, but he said he would be resurrected. And if he isn't resurrected, then he lied. Then he didn't do everything he said he would do. And, and although he died an unbelievable death, although he showed unbelievable love, although he showed commitment to his cause, if he didn't resurrect from the dead, he didn't do everything he said. But if the resurrection is true, then that proves that all the words of Jesus are true. You see, Jesus said he would be resurrected. Secondly, and he did. He did. He was. He was resurrected.
May I say this? If what he said about the resurrection is true, then we can trust him in everything he has said. He said I am the way, I am the truth, I am the light. If the resurrection is true, then we can trust everything. We can trust the fact that he died in our place. That means we can believe that he did die on the cross. It means we can believe that he was born of a virgin.
It means that it was prophesied and it was fulfilled. However, if the resurrection is not true, then we can't trust anything he's ever said, and we're wasting our time being here today. And if he wasn't resurrected, why would we come to church? We have no hope anyway, because if there was no resurrection, then there would be no hope. So why are we even here? I'll tell you why we're here, because he was resurrected.
If the resurrection is true, then all the words of Jesus are true. I mentioned this last night. I mentioned it at Sunday school. I mentioned it at the beginning.
Let me say it again. Christmas was the promise that he was going to come. The crucifixion was the passion that he loved us that much, but the resurrection is the proof. That's the proof that everything he said would happen did happen. How miraculous that a man would prophesy how he was going to die, and then he said on the third day, I will rise again. And if he did that, you can take everything he has said to the bank.
Number two this morning, I want you to understand this. If the resurrection is true, then God's power really is unlimited. If the resurrection is true, and Satan hates this, because if the resurrection is true, that means there is no limit to God's power. You see, if he died but he was never resurrected, there would be a limit.
It means he could do all this. Oh, he could heal people. Oh, he could give their sight back. He could give their hearing back.
He could make the lame to walk, but he couldn't rise from the dead. So there would be a limit. And guess what that means to you? It means in your life as a believer, there would be a limit as to what God can do in your life. There would be a limit as to what God can do for you.
You might have circumstances, situations, broken marriages, broken lives, broken relationships, whatever here today. And I'm here to tell you, if the resurrection is true, that means God has enough power to turn this situation around. But if the resurrection is not true, it means he doesn't have unlimited power.
I want you to look at this verse, Romans 1, 3, concerning his son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, which means God became man, flesh, and he declared to be the Son of God, notice this, with power. Well just because somebody declares that, I can declare to you I have unlimited power. And obviously I don't. I can't even stay away from sugar. Obviously I have very limited power.
I have very limited willpower. What did Jesus say? He said, I am the Son of God with power.
Notice what the verse says. According to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead. He declared to have power, but he proved that he had that power by resurrecting from the dead. You have to understand, if the resurrection is true, then that means there is nothing that my God can't do.
You might sit here today and you say there's some things in my life I just don't know how it's going to happen. I just don't know how it's going to change if he resurrected from the dead. That means there's nothing that my God cannot do. I want you to look at this verse, 1 Corinthians 15, 55. We read it often in funerals.
And there's a reason for that when a person is saved. Notice, oh death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God which giveth us the victory.
How? Through Jesus Christ our Lord. If he wasn't resurrected, there would be no Jesus Christ. He would be dead in the grave, gone forever. There would be no Jesus. So we would have no victory. But because there was resurrection, Jesus is alive and well.
He is at the right hand of the throne of God. And you and I have victory even over death because of the power that Jesus displayed in the resurrection. You ought to feel really good about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. For the believer, death has been conquered. For the believer, we have victory in every scenario of our life. You say, preacher, you don't know what I'm facing right now.
It doesn't matter what you're facing. God's already given you the victory because if he could resurrect from the dead, he can give you victory over it. Look, if God can give you victory over death, that's the biggest battle you'll ever be able to face. And if he can give you victory over death, there's nothing he can't give you victory over.
I want you to notice, number three, if the resurrection is true, then we can know that we are loved and valued by God. Do you know one of the greatest lies? Satan is always going to try to convince you that God doesn't love you. He went all the way back to the Garden of Eden, to Adam and Eve. Satan tried to convince Adam and Eve that God didn't love them.
He didn't want the best for them. That's why he's not letting you eat that tree. If you eat of the fruit of that tree, God knows you're going to become like him, and he doesn't want you to. And so that, and so from the very start, temptation centers around, to the Christian, Satan trying to convince you that God doesn't love you, that God doesn't have your best interest at heart. Notice this verse, 1 John 3 16. Hereby, perceive we the love of God.
Now let's stop right there. Perceive, this is how we know that God loves us. This is how we are able to feel and know and see the love of God.
Notice this. Hereby, perceive we the love of God because He laid down His life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. Can I tell you something? God proved His love to us because He died. He proved His love to us because He resurrected.
Look at me. If a person loves you but they die and that's it forever, what good did that love do you? But because Jesus loved us enough to die and He resurrected, that means His love can change your life. You see if the resurrection is true, then we know we're loved.
We know we're valued. Why else would He have done it? Why would He have come? Why would He have died?
Look at me. Jesus was already God. He didn't do this for Him.
He already had a position that could never be taken away from Him. He was God. That whole thing didn't do anything for Him, but it did everything for us because we're loved and valued by God. And if there is no resurrection, then there's no love proven. But if the resurrection is true, then it proves that we are loved and valued by God. If the resurrection is true, then there is a God who thinks the world of you. If the resurrection is true, it means there is a God that loves you enough to die and rise again so that you can have salvation and you can have hope and you can have a home in heaven. So let me ask you, number four, is the resurrection true? Well, let's attack this first biblically and we're almost done, believe it or not, today. Is the resurrection true? Look at 1 Corinthians 15 verse 3 here on the screen. Look at what Paul says, for I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried and that He rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures.
He did what He said He would do. So how do we know it happened? Just because you said it happened, how do we know?
And that's why people struggle. Just because the Bible says it, how do we know? Well, we believe the Bible because it's God's Word.
But to a person who is not a believer, they say just because it says it, we can read things in books all the time that aren't necessarily true. So notice what Paul says here. Notice number one, Paul says he was seen alive by Peter and the apostles. Look at verse five. And that he was seen of Cephas, that's Peter, and then of the twelve.
So Jesus didn't just resurrect from the grave, went straight to heaven, and we just believe what He said, although we would believe if that's all we were given is that He said He did, we would believe it. But he was seen alive after the crucifixion, after he was put in the tomb, he was seen alive by Peter and the twelve apostles. Notice secondly, Paul says, he was seen by five hundred people at one time.
Look at verse six. After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain unto this present. Paul says many of them that physically saw him after the resurrection are still alive. They remain unto this present, but some are falling asleep.
Some have died. But five hundred, and they weren't all, but at one time there was five hundred people at one time. That's, that's about what's in this building or more, at one time saw Jesus alive. That means there are five hundred families represented that for generations grandpa saw Jesus. And he told us.
But after generation after generation after generation it falls off. Notice what he says thirdly in verse seven. He was seen by James and the apostles.
Look at verse seven. After that he was seen of James, then of all the apostles. So he was seen of Peter. He was seen of the twelve.
He was seen of five hundred men and women all at the same time. He was seen of James. He was seen of the apostles. But listen to what Paul says.
First hand account, verse eight. He was seen of Paul. And last of all, he says, he was seen of me.
I know what I'm talking about. I saw him alive. This is before Paul became known as Paul, that you and I know as Paul. He saw Jesus. Notice this.
I love this. As of one born out of due time. So we have historical account that Jesus was seen alive after he resurrected from the grave like he said he would. He was seen by Peter. He was seen by James. He was seen of the twelve. He was seen of the apostles. He was seen by five hundred people at one time on different occasions. He was seen of Paul.
And then there's this. I felt him this morning. He lives in here. I know it. I beyond a shadow of a doubt you say prove it. Listen I can't necessarily prove it but you see these lights.
It's electricity. That's the results of it. Half of you can't prove it.
It just works. And I'm going to tell you this. Many of you sitting in here, you know he's real to you. So that means this. If the resurrection is true, that means that I can trust everything he said. It means that his power is absolutely unlimited.
It means that I know I'm loved and valued of God. I know it's true. So the question is this. The resurrection is true.
By the way the grave is empty. Have you ever trusted him as your personal Savior? Oh I've been in church for years. I didn't ask that. Oh I've been baptized.
Didn't ask that. I know individuals and listen there's a lot of different religions that trust on different things. I know some people that they trust in Mary to go to heaven. Isn't it interesting that when Jesus died on the cross, the thief on the cross next to him that God saved, Jesus' mother was there. He never looked to the mother. He looked to Jesus. And Jesus said, today you'll be with me in paradise.
Mother had nothing to do with that. Why would you trust in Mary when the thief on the cross knew not to trust in the mother? He was trusting in Jesus hanging right by him. Do you know him today? May I say this? We can see that picture of the computer again, John.
Just because it's hard to wrap your head around it, doesn't mean it didn't happen. British minister in the mid-1950s named W. E. Sangster. He began to lose his voice and mobility. He had a disease that caused rapid muscular atrophy and he recognized that his end was near. So he began to write, pray, spend every waking moment he could writing things down, writing sermons out. In the midst of his suffering, he pleaded this, he wrote this down, let me stay in the struggle, Lord.
I don't mind if I can no longer be a general, but please at least give me a regiment to lead. On Easter morning, just a few weeks before his death, he took a pen. By this time, his voice was completely gone and his legs would have become useless.
He was bedridden. And on this Easter morning, he took a pen and he wrote his daughter a letter. By the way, I believe this and I might be wrong about this, but this might not be the letter, but I believe he has a letter in the Museum of the Bible handwritten there. And he wrote his daughter a letter and in it he said this, it is terrible to wake up on Easter morning and have no voice with which to shout, he is risen.
But it would be more terrible to have a voice and not want to shout it. You ought to want to shout today. He is risen. I want to ask you to bow your heads and close your eyes and thank you for your time today. I feel like it's been a service that has honored the Lord, but this is the most important time.
So hold tight with me here for just a minute. With our heads bowed and our eyes closed, I want to ask you today, I'm not asking if you've been in church your whole life or if this is the first Sunday you've ever been in church. I'm not asking if you've been to an altar, if you've been baptized. I'm asking this this morning, do you know beyond the shadow of a doubt that if you died today you would be on your way to heaven?
Our heads are bowed and our eyes are closed and I want you to know today that nobody here will ever embarrass you, at least meaning to do so. With our heads bowed and our eyes closed today, dear friend, I hope that you're not trusting in a church membership. I hope you're not trusting in a sacrament. I hope that you're not trusting in a sprinkling. I hope that you're not trusting even in a baptism. I hope that you're not trusting in that grandma and grandpa or mom and dad were church people.
I hope you're not trusting in any of that. I'm asking you today, you as a person, have you ever placed your faith and trust in Jesus Christ? With our heads bowed and our eyes closed today, I want you to know right where you sit on Easter Sunday morning, you can trust Jesus as your Savior. It's a matter of you understanding you're a sinner. It's a matter of you believing that Jesus did die.
He came, he lived, he died and that he rose again. It's a matter of you realizing that you can't save yourself, that he did all this for you and then it's simply a matter of you believing. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
You don't get saved because you belong to a certain denomination or you go to a certain kind of church that has nothing to do with salvation. Right where you sit today with our heads bowed and our eyes closed between you and God right now if you've never trusted Jesus as your Savior. Right now you can pray right to him. You can go right to the throne of God through the blood of Jesus Christ. And just say, Lord, I know I'm a sinner.
I admit that. And I believe you died for me and that you rose again. And today I'm asking you to save me.
In just a few minutes we're going to be baptizing. These individuals came to this point. They had to admit they were lost in order to be saved.
Right where you sit you can pray right now and put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. You say, well, preacher, I just, I'm not the best person and I don't know if I can live a perfect life. You don't have to live a perfect life. If you lived a perfect life that wouldn't save you. And I'm here to tell you that you're not going to lose your salvation because you don't live a perfect life. Jesus doesn't save us because we're perfect. He saves us because he was perfect. And he loves you. And he died for you.
Our heads are bowed and our eyes closed. Lord, I love you and I thank you for all that you've done. Lord, if anyone trusted Christ here this morning I pray that, Lord, they'll go by the information desk and let someone know so that we can give them materials, help them, deal with them, disciple them if they wish, help them to grow in the Lord.
It's the most important decision anybody will ever make in their entire life. Can't imagine a better day to do it than Easter Sunday morning. Thank you for listening today. We hope you received a blessing from our broadcast. The Kirtland Baptist Church is located at 4520 Old Hollow Road in Kernersville, North Carolina. You may also contact us by phone at 336-993-5192 or via the web at kirtlandbaptistchurch.com. Enjoy our services live and all our media on our website and church app.
Thank you for listening to the Kerwin broadcast today. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you.
