Hey, podcast listeners! Thanks for streaming today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. Our mission is to pierce the darkness with the light of God's word through the most effective media available, like this podcast. To support Pathway to Victory, go to ptv.org slash podcast and click the donate button, or follow the link in our show notes. Now, here's today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory. And I'm glad to study God's Word with you every day on this Bible teaching program.
On today's edition of Pathway to Victory. Life's most important choice. What are you going to do about Jesus? Are you ready to accept His message? Are you going to reject His message? Are you going to neglect the message?
If you have your Bibles, turn to Acts chapter 2, as we talk about life's most important choice. Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor, Dr. Robert Jeffress. Have you heard the phrase, momento mori? It's Latin for remember death. Pretty morbid, don't you think?
I mean, who wants to be reminded of their inevitable death? Well, today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress cautions us that life is fleeting, and we only have a limited time to prepare ourselves for eternity. Now, here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message.
Dr. Jeffress. Thanks, David. Just before we get started with today's message, I'd like to remind you about an exceptional opportunity to join hundreds of your fellow Pathway to Victory listeners from all over the country on our cruise to Alaska, June 15th through 22nd. We're planning a vacation for you that's uniquely Christian, bringing our own music like that of Rebecca St. James and Michael O'Brien. We're also bringing along comedian Dennis Swanberg, who'll have us laughing the whole way, and I'll also be opening God's Word most evenings.
So, take advantage of signing up right now because Premier Cabin Space is still available. All the details, including the itinerary and list of special performers, are found online at ptv.org. Well, today is the very last day in a special teaching series that I started the beginning of March. For the last few weeks, we've devoted our complete attention to the power of the cross. On this final day in the series, it's my last occasion to offer a special resource from Pathway to Victory. It's a photo journal of sorts in which you and I journey through the Passion Week of Jesus, from his triumphal entrance into Jerusalem to his glorious resurrection from the tomb.
This is a coffee table style book that you will cherish for many years to come, and you're invited to request your copy for today only when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. Now, it's time to get started with today's message. At the outset, I want to mention that my original presentation occurred just when the COVID pandemic began to wind down.
This message, delivered on Easter morning, is titled, Life's Most Important Choice. What a difference a year makes. Can you remember one year ago on Easter Sunday? We were at the beginning of this pandemic. Fear was gripping our nation.
We were in lockdown mode for the first time in history. Churches everywhere were closed to in-person worship, and we were worshiping every one of us online. I'll never forget last Easter Sunday, because I was standing right here last Easter Sunday morning, looking out to an empty auditorium, preaching to a camera and an online audience of more than a million people, including our former president. God used the day in a great way.
Thousands came to faith in Christ, but I'll have to admit to you, I prefer this way much better, getting to look at you and having you here in worship. You know, one positive thing I'll have to say about the pandemic has been that it's forced many people to come to grips with their with their own mortality. Have you come to grips with the fact that you are going to die one day? Somebody has said the statistics on death are quite impressive.
One out of every one dies. We're going to die. And if that were not terrifying enough, the Bible says following our death comes our judgment by God. Every one of us is going to stand before a holy God and be judged.
Hebrews 9 27 says it's appointed unto every person wants to die and then the judgment. So let me ask you this morning, what truth are you holding on to? What are you banking on that will help you survive your inevitable death and your judgment by God? Some people say, well, I'm trusting them the fact that I'm a pretty good person. I'm not perfect. I have my flaws, but I'm good enough. No, Romans 3 10 says there's not one righteous among us.
No, not even one. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Other people are saying, well, I'm trusting the fact that I come from a Christian family. I have a godly mother or father or grandparent.
That's what I'm trusting in. As Louis Palau, the late evangelist said, God has no grandchildren. You have to be a child of God. Jesus said in John 3 3, unless you are born again, you cannot come into the kingdom of God. Some people say, well, I'm trusting in my baptism. I was baptized as a child or sprinkled as an infant.
Surely that's enough. Titus 3 5 says, no, it's not by the washing of water that we're saved, but the washing of regeneration. Some people are actually banking on God himself. They're saying, I'm trusting in the fact that God is a tolerant, a loving God, and surely he's not going to send people to an eternity in hell.
No, Exodus 34 verse 7 says, God will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. What are you trusting in right now? To see you through death and help you survive the judgment of God. In the passage we're going to look at today, we're going to discover that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead make him the only object worthy of our faith. If you have your Bibles, turn to Acts chapter two, as we talk about life's most important choice. Acts chapter two. Let me set the scene for you in Acts two.
We're in Jerusalem at this point. People were still talking about the crucifixion of this man, Jesus of Nazareth, who called himself the Messiah, the son of God. The city was talking about his alleged resurrection from the dead.
Over the past 40 days, people had actually seen him alive and reported on that. And if that weren't enough, 10 days before Acts chapter two, Jesus had been with a group on the Mount of Olives and thousands had seen him ascend into heaven. Before he ascended into heaven, he had told his followers, now go to the upper room and wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit.
But once the spirit comes, you're to be my witnesses throughout the world. When we get to Acts chapter two, 10 days later, it's the day of Pentecost and the disciples gather together in the upper room, receive the baptism with the Holy Spirit. And once they receive that baptism, they're going to be the Holy Spirit.
And once they received that baptism, their first instinct was to go to the temple area where there were hundreds of thousands of Jews gathered together. And Peter, the leader of the group, stood up to preach the first sermon ever preached in the newly created church. And we find a record of that sermon in Acts chapter two. I want you to look at the heart of the sermon, verse 22.
Men of Israel, Peter said, listen to these words. Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs, which God performed through him in your midst, just as you yourselves know. This man delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and you put him to death.
But God raised him up again, putting an end to the agony of death since it was impossible for him to be held in its power. Isn't it interesting that the first sermon ever preached by the church was a sermon about Jesus Christ? And it wasn't a sermon about Jesus, the great teacher. It wasn't about Jesus, the great moral example. It was about Jesus, the savior of the world.
And Peter boldly said to that group, you can't ignore what has happened here these last two months. You've got to make a decision, a choice about who Jesus is and what you're going to do about him. Was he just a lunatic? Was he a liar or was he Lord? And if you believe that he was the long awaited Messiah, are you ready to accept his message? Are you going to reject his message?
Are you going to neglect the message? Life's most important choice. What are you going to do about Jesus? And Peter said, before you reject him or neglect him, consider three aspects of Jesus. First of all, his miraculous life. Peter said to that throng of thousands that day, you cannot ignore what Jesus did as signs and miracles. The feeding of the 5,000, later on the feeding of the 4,000, the casting out of demons, walking on the water, and who can forget raising Lazarus from the dead.
You can't ignore those things. He didn't do those miracles in a closet somewhere. He did them where everybody could see. He did them in your midst, just as you yourselves know, he added. In other words, he said to the crowd assembled together, he said, you listening to me today, you either saw some of those miracles yourself or you know somebody who did see them. Today we say, well, how do we know those things happened?
It's 2,000 years later. None of us has seen those miracles ourselves. How do we know that the Bible can be trusted? How do we know that these miracles weren't added onto the gospels hundreds of years later, as some people claim? What you may not realize is the New Testament that we trust in, to give us an accurate record of Jesus, did you know it is the most copied work of any piece of ancient literature. There is no document that has any more proof for it than the Bible, what we call the Word of God.
Let me illustrate that for you. You know, in school, you learn about Plato, the great Greek philosopher, Plato. Do you know how many manuscripts we have of Plato's works?
Seven. Everything we base when we quote Plato comes from only seven copies of manuscripts that are hundreds, a thousand years removed from when Plato actually taught and wrote. Or think about Homer's Iliad.
How many of you were bored in college or high school with the Iliad by Homer? Did you know it's the second most copied manuscript in history? We have 700 manuscripts of Homer's Iliad. Do you know how many copies of ancient Greek manuscripts we have for the New Testament, including the miracles?
25,000. We have more copies of the Greek New Testament than any other work of literature. In fact, there is more literary support for Jesus of Nazareth, his life, his miracles, than there is for Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar. Does anybody doubt Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great? The great spoke and lived and were great leaders?
No. But there are 25,000 pieces of evidence for the manuscript of the Greek New Testament. And that's why Peter says, you cannot ignore Jesus' miraculous life. But Peter doesn't stop there. He says, consider his atoning death. Verse 23, this man, Jesus, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put him to death.
Now you want to talk about guts. Peter had guts. Here he was standing before the very people who just seven weeks earlier had cried out for the crucifixion of Jesus. He said, you godless people, you nailed him to a cross. But then he said, it was all according to the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God.
Jesus Christ died for our sins according to the scripture. Peter said all of this was a part of God's plan that had been prophesied, a hundreds of years, and in some cases, a thousand years before the fact. Did you know every detail about Jesus' life, death, and resurrection was prophesied in scripture?
I jotted down just a few of them. Zachariah, written 800 years before Christ was born, Zachariah 11, 12, predicted he would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver. Psalm 22, 16, was written a thousand years before Christ lived. It predicted that his hands and feet would be pierced. Now remember, this was describing crucifixion that hadn't even been invented when the Psalms were written, but it was prophesied that he would die that way. Isaiah 53, 12, written 700 years before the Lord, said he would be crucified between thieves, and the same verse said that he would pray for those who crucified him. Psalm 22, verse 18, a thousand years before Christ, the soldiers would divide and cast lots for his clothes. That was all prophesied in scripture.
Isaiah 8, 9, written 800 years before Christ, said there would be darkness over the land at his death. None of these things happened by accident. They were all part of the plan of God. Why did he have to die? Because when Jesus, the perfect son of God, hung on that cross, in some inexplicable way, he received the punishment from God that you and I deserve, and that's why Isaiah the prophet said in chapter 53, for he, Jesus, was pierced through for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening for our well-being fell upon him.
All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned every way into our own ways, but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall upon him. Jesus came to die to pay for our sins.
That's what Jesus Christ did for you. He paid the sin debt that you and I could never pay. Love's redeeming work was done on that Friday afternoon. Before you ignore, before you reject the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, remember his atoning work for you.
But the story doesn't end there. In addition to his miraculous life and his atoning death, consider his supernatural resurrection. Look at verse 24. In that sermon, Peter proclaimed, but God raised him up again, putting an end to agony of death, since it was impossible for him to be held by its power.
How do we know that Jesus was really resurrected from the dead? We've talked about that in many other passages. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says that the resurrected Christ was seen by over 500 witnesses at a single time. Or think about the amazing transformation that occurred in such a short period of time in the disciples. I mean, Friday afternoon, they had scattered like rats off the sinking ship.
They were scared to death, starting with Peter. And yet overnight, three days later, they were transformed into courageous defenders of the faith. I mean, here is Peter seven weeks later, standing before the crowd that he ran from earlier and saying without hesitation, this is the Christ and I'm willing to give my life for him. How do you explain that change in the disciples? Or think about the changes that occurred in Judaism. I mean, Judaism had been practicing the same laws and traditions for 1400 years. And yet, overnight, there was a seismic change in Judaism. They changed their day of worship, thousands of them, over a period of just a few days from Saturday to Sunday.
They gave up many of the practices of the Old Testament. Sociologists tell us that it takes decades, if not centuries, to have changes in religious traditions, but it happened here overnight. How do you explain it? There is no explanation except for something seismic happened, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. What do you say about the empty tomb? You know, people say, well, the disciples stole the body.
That's the easiest explanation. That makes no sense. They had no courage to defeat a Roman guard unit of 16 men. Other people say, well, what happened was the Jewish leaders or the Roman leaders, they stole the body.
That makes even less sense. They wanted to keep that body in the grave. Remember the Jewish leaders came to Pontius Pilate Saturday after the crucifixion? They said, Pilate, we've got a problem. We've got to secure that grave where Jesus is, lest the disciples come and steal the body and say he's risen from the dead as he predicted, and the last deception will be worse than the first.
And Pilate said, okay, you've got your guard, a guard unit, 16 men. They didn't want that body going anywhere, lest the claim that Jesus was the Lord be validated. No, the disciples didn't have the courage to steal the body.
The leaders didn't have the motivation to steal the body. There's only one explanation for why even today the body of Jesus Christ has not been discovered after 2,000 years. Only one explanation, and that is God himself reached down into that grave and rescued his son from the jaws of death, and one day he'll do the same for you and for me.
That is the only explanation. The fact that Christ was raised from the dead shows he was who he claimed to be. The patriarch Job asked what perhaps is the most simple but most profound question of all time. If a person dies, will he live again?
Don't you agree that's the bottom line question? When you strip everything away from life, the real question that affects us all here today is, is this life all that there is, or is there an existence beyond death? If a person dies, will he live again? If my wife or husband dies, will they live again? If my child dies, will they live again? My father died 30 years ago, will he live again? 35 years ago today, my mother died, will I ever see her again? If a person dies, will they live again again?
If I die, when I die, will I live again? It's the same question that Martha asked Jesus after her brother Lazarus had died. She blamed the Lord, said, Lord, if only you had been here sooner, my brother wouldn't have died. Jesus said, Martha, your brother will live again. And Martha said basically to Jesus, I don't want to hear any of that resurrection stuff, some future resurrection. I'm hurting right now and I need some answers. Lord, what about my brother?
What are you going to do to help me? And Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live again. And then Jesus added, Martha, do you believe me?
You've been around me for three years now, you've heard my teaching, you've seen my miracles, but do you believe, trust in, cling to what I've just said? And that's the real question for you today. What are you going to do with what Jesus said? What choice are you going to make? Are you going to simply reject what he says, I don't believe any of that stuff?
Are you going to neglect and say, I'll wait to another time to make my decision? Or are you willing to put your entire faith and trust in what Jesus did for you to survive the day of your death and the inevitable judgment of God? My friend, Erwin Lutcher says, five minutes after you die, you will have either had your first glimpse of heaven with all of its euphoria and bliss, or you will have had your first experience of unrelenting horror and regret.
Either way, your eternal destiny will be unchangeable. If you have made this decision to trust in Jesus Christ today, would you do me the favor of letting us know? We would love to rejoice with you. And in a moment, David will give our mailing address where you can send me a personal note.
I'd love to hear from you. And then bear in mind that today is the final day to request a special resource from Pathway to Victory. My new booklet is called Three Days that Changed the World. In a multi-folded format, I'll show you the hour-by-hour account of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. When you include a generous gift with your request, I'll also include a beautiful coffee table book that celebrates seven days in the life of Christ. It's called The Power of the Cross. And my book features more than 90 pages of striking images from the Holy Land. It begins with the triumphal entry into Jerusalem and ends with Jesus' glorious resurrection from the dead.
Be sure to request your copy on this final day. Again, it's called The Power of the Cross. I have the privilege of reading thousands of comments that come in from your fellow listeners, and I can assure you that our ministry together through Pathway to Victory is truly making a difference. People from all walks of life are beginning to understand and embrace the power of the cross. Thanks so much for helping us push back the forces of darkness by shining the truth of God's Word.
David? Thanks, Dr. Jeffress. Today, when you support the ministry of Pathway to Victory by giving a generous gift, we'll say thanks by sending you The Power of the Cross, the brand new beautifully illustrated coffee table style book based on the teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. And as a bonus, we're going to include a brand new brochure called Three Days that Changed the World. Simply give us a call at 866-999-2965 or visit online at ptv.org. And when you give $75 or more, we'll also send you Live from Israel, eight powerful messages by Dr. Jeffress from the Holy Land.
These messages were recently preached on location in Israel, and you'll receive them on both DVD video and MP3 format audio disc. This is the very last day we're offering this special package of resources, so be sure to get in touch right away. Again, call 866-999-2965 or go to ptv.org. If you'd prefer to send your donation by mail, write to PO Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222.
That's PO Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. I'm David J. Mullins. Jesus clearly stated, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Yet Christians are being typecast as hateful and intolerant for teaching the exclusive claims of Christ. Join us for the series, Not All Roads Lead to Heaven, starting Wednesday on Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory, and we're so glad you're here. Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible. One of the most impactful ways you can give is by becoming a Pathway Partner. Your monthly gift will empower Pathway to Victory to share the gospel of Jesus Christ and help others become rooted more firmly in His Word. To become a Pathway Partner, go to lptv.org slash podcast and click on the donate button or follow the link in our show notes. We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.
