Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): Today, Stuart brings you the conclusion of his message, The Empty Tomb, and encourages you to consider how you personally respond to Christ's resurrection. Did you know you can find more life-giving content from the Briscoes at tellingthetruth.org and on the Telling the Truth app? There, you can sign up for daily devotionals, watch videos, read blogs, and access a variety of other resources to help you experience life.

And while you're there, you can also request this month's featured resource as thanks for your gift of support to help share the abundant life Jesus offers with more people around the world. Visit us online or download the app today and experience life with Telling the Truth. Now, let's hear from Stuart.

Stuart Briscoe: Now, I'm not going to make application and say, "Men, we've got to be more like the women," anymore than I want the women to be more like the men. But what I'm going to say is this: We don't want to feminize the church, but we don't want to masculinize the women either. But what we do need to do is this: We need to recognize that there is much for men to learn from women as the men are always expecting to teach the women. And that what we can learn from women is the kind of courage that is relatively foreign to our thinking. Much more we could say. Some of the guys are saying, "You've said quite enough. What's next?" The women say, "No, go on. Tell us more."

Well, let me look at the next stage here. The angels. Well, I didn't read this passage to you, did I? Verse four: "While they were wondering about the rolled-away stone, the empty tomb, and the missing body, while they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright, the women bowed down with their faces to the ground. But the men said to them, 'Why are you looking for the living among the dead? He is not here. He is risen. Remember how he told you while he was still with you in Galilee, "The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified, and on the third day be raised again"?' Then they remembered his words."

Alright, what happens here? Well, these men in gleaming clothes, other writers say they were just angels. Somebody said, "Oh, come on. You've had demons popping around all over the place in Magdalene. Now you've got angels popping up. And next you're going to tell us that Jesus actually physically rose again from the dead." Okay, just hold it. We'll get there in a minute, well, a few minutes.

The story simply says that there were angelic messengers who gently rebuked them and said, "Why are you looking for the living among the dead?" These poor women, if they were able to answer these men, these angels, in their terror, they would have said, "We're not looking for the living. We're not looking for the living. We're looking for the dead. We've got the spices. We want to embalm his body." There are people who are critical of the Christian doctrine of the resurrection who say that Jesus didn't rise again from the dead and he didn't appear to his disciples; they were hallucinating.

What we know about hallucinations, however, is this: That hallucinations are the result of people having such expectations, such a desire for something to happen, that it becomes almost a self-fulfilling longing within them. They weren't longing. They weren't expecting. They weren't anticipating resurrection at all. They weren't looking for the living among the dead. They were looking for a very, very dead Jesus, whose body was decomposing, which they wanted to prepare for the burial that it had never been prepared for.

But then they make the announcement: "He is not here." That's obvious. But how do you account for him not being there? There are many ways you could account for him being there. How did the women initially account for him not being there? Well, when Mary sees who she thinks is the gardener, she says to the gardener, "They've taken away my Lord. And if you know where they've taken him to, please tell me." What does she think has happened? How does she explain the rolled-away stone, the empty tomb, the missing body? Simple. Somebody took the body. That's how she explains it.

But the angels introduce an entirely different factor here. And this has to be factored into our reckoning. You can explain the stone, you can explain the empty tomb, you can explain the missing body. What do you do with this message? "He is not here. He is risen just as he said he would." What else did he say? While you were in Galilee, the angels go on, he told you this: "The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified, and on the third day rise again."

You will remember that when Jesus was in Galilee talking to these men and women, he had given them a sense of "mustness," of intentionality about his mission. Repeatedly he'd used the word "must." "I must do this. I must do that." Including, "The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men." It is intentional. It is something that Peter said on the day of Pentecost was part of the set plan and foreknowledge of God. What? That he should be delivered, handed over into sinful men's hands according to the set purpose and foreknowledge of God. Why? Because God is allowing his sinless, spotless Son to be taken by sinful men and made an offering for sin. It's intentional. It must happen.

But that is not the end of the story. For he must be crucified, and on the third day he must rise again from the dead. Why? Because that is a demonstration of the power of God triumphing in the arena of the worst of man. That's our hope. That's our hope. That the power of God can triumph in the arena of the worst of man. The disciples explained to the women, "It must happen. It has happened. He's not here. He's risen, just as he said." Do you believe that?

Guest (Male): More powerful teaching from the Briscoes is headed your way, so don't go anywhere. We've made a wide array of resources and content available to you online for free at tellingthetruth.org and on the Telling the Truth app. There, you can listen, read, and watch powerful teaching from Stuart and Jill on relevant topics like the sovereignty of God, the importance of the church, and how to grow closer to Jesus Christ.

You can also request this month's featured resource as thanks for your gift of support to help share the abundant life Jesus offers with more people around the world. Visit us online or download the app today and experience life with Telling the Truth. Now, let's get back to Stuart for more of today's teaching.

Stuart Briscoe: If you were to accept this idea, "Okay, Jesus really did rise again from the dead," what do you imagine in your mind? Well, you say, "I imagine, I don't need to like to talk about it, but I imagine his body being buried immediately after death as they do in the Middle East for obvious reasons, unembalmed, unprepared for burial, just dropped in a tomb there. And immediately the process of decomposition sets in. He's there over three days.

And then somehow or other the process of decomposition is arrested and then it's reversed. And then I guess this body is revivified. And then somehow or other this revivified body wriggles out of these grave clothes. I hadn't really thought about it, but I guess the grave clothes are there, so it must have done. And then somehow or other managed to push the stone away and then get out without the guards noticing and disappear. I guess that's what happened."

No, no. You see, what happened was this: It's explained for us in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. I want you to read that, not while I'm talking. I want you to read 1 Corinthians chapter 15. 1 Corinthians chapter 15 differentiates between an earthly body and a heavenly body. Clearly differentiates between the two. And what is happening here is not an earthly body that is decomposing, has the process arrested and reversed and is then revivified and just begins to behave like an earthly body. No.

What has happened is a dramatic work of divine transformation where the earthly body is changed into a heavenly body. That which is related to here suddenly becomes that which belongs there. That which we understand in the here and now is suddenly that which is appropriate and necessary in the there and then. This is not time; this is eternity on display. He doesn't need to wriggle to get out of the grave clothes. This is a heavenly body. He doesn't need someone to move the stone.

The stone wasn't moved to let him out; the stone was moved to let the disciples in. He doesn't need anybody to help him handle the guards. This is a heavenly body. And the interesting thing about it is this: Just as he said it would happen, it has. Do you believe that? That's important. Because the women go to the men. The men have barricaded themselves in a room. Sorry guys, but this is what it says.

The men had barricaded themselves into the room. The women come to the door. They start knocking on the door. "Let us in, let us in, let us in." The men said, "What? What do you want?" "Let us in, let us in, we've got wonderful news." And the men said, "No way we're letting you in here. We don't know what's going on here." Another problem, of course, is they're women and they're all talking at once.

Men can't handle that. They say, "Okay, pick a number, one after the other. We need to process this." And eventually they get what the women are trying to say. "We went to the tomb. The stone was rolled away. The body was gone. The tomb was emptied. There were a couple of angels there. They said he's risen just as he said he was going to do because, and we remember now, he predicted he would in Galilee and you heard it as well." And the men, the men said, "Nonsense. Nonsense."

Let me ask you something: Have you met anybody who says "nonsense" about the resurrection? You've met anybody who says, "Oh, come on. Don't give me that. Don't give me this angel stuff. Don't give me this demon stuff. Don't give me this resurrection stuff. I am a 21st-century man." The problem for these disciples, actually they were the apostles. Actually these men who are rank skeptics over the resurrection, they are the apostles, the 11 survivors of the original 12, the foundation of the church. No wonder we say God help the church.

That's how we started out. If the church is anything, it is attributable to the grace of God. These men have a problem. You know what their problem is? Their problem is their presuppositions. And that's my problem, that's your problem very often. A presupposition, what's that? A presupposition is an assumption made in advance. Your presuppositions will inevitably determine your conclusions.

You start out at a certain place, you're going to finish up in a predictable place. Presuppositions lead to conclusions. Everybody operates on presuppositions. That's why you don't spend a lot of time arguing about conclusions; you explore presuppositions. Here is a presupposition. Presupposition number one: The universe is a closed universe, not subject to external forces, in which things that happen are the effects of discernable causes.

Everything operates on the basis of cause and effect. It's a closed universe. There is no way in which external forces can intrude. That's a presupposition which will lead to a naturalistic view of the world. Here's another presupposition: This universe is not closed; it was created by a God who reserves the right to intervene. That there are spiritual dynamics of which we are not necessarily aware.

That these spiritual dynamics can be malevolent or they can be benevolent, but overall God is sovereign and he intervenes in the affairs of men. That's another presupposition. You will operate on one or the other. You'll operate on one or the other. And those presuppositions will determine your conclusion. Here's the presupposition of the apostles at this particular point. Jesus said he was the Christ. We bought it. We believed it.

We even went around telling people he was. But we've been checking on our Bibles, and one thing we know about Messiah, the Christ, is this: That he will be the Son of Man. The Son of Man in Daniel chapter seven is shown to be ultimately and finally a world ruler. We've also checked on Psalm two and other Messianic psalms, and we have seen the same thing, except the emphasis there is that Messiah will be the restorer of the Davidic kingdom.

We believed it. We thought Jesus would do both. And now he's dead. He couldn't be Messiah. He's a fake. He's a phony. Don't tell us he's risen from the dead. You see how their presuppositions lead inevitably to their conclusion. There are people who simply say, "As far as this world of ours is concerned, there's no such thing as angels. There's no such thing as demons. There's no such thing as resurrection because God doesn't raise people from the dead."

Let me address my dear skeptical friends, and let me ask you a question that's not original. Paul asked it of King Agrippa: "Why should it be thought incredible to you that God raises the dead?" Why? Why is that incredible? Well, I'll add a little bit here to help you try to answer that if you're skeptical of the resurrection. Do you believe it's incredible that God would raise the dead because God couldn't do it?

Or do you believe that he doesn't raise the dead because he wouldn't do it? Or because he shouldn't do it? He couldn't? He wouldn't? Or he shouldn't? Why is it incredible that God would raise the dead? That's for my skeptical friends to think. I want you to explore your presupposition. If your presupposition is, "This is what God is," or "This is what God is not," then you need to explore that because where did you get your ideas of God? Are they just from your head? You mean God fits into your head? With all due respect, that ain't much of a God.

There's one bright spot, however, in this story. Peter. Peter. Peter has learned at long last that it's a good idea to keep your mouth shut. He has shot off his mouth once too often. And he's been caught out. And the cock crew, and he'd already denied Jesus three times that night. Remember? And Jesus looked at him, didn't say a word, didn't need to, and Peter is devastated.

So he's not about to open his big mouth now. And whilst the men, the other apostles, are saying to the women, "Oh, be quiet. Give me a break. Don't come all this nonsense about him being risen," Peter's strangely quiet. He's taking it all in. And he's saying to himself, "Something's happened to these women. They've seen something. They've heard something. And if it's true that that tomb is empty and it's true that the body is missing and it is true that he said he would rise again from the dead, I need to explore this."

And Peter does a smart thing: keeps his mouth shut. And he goes quietly to the tomb and he finds the stone rolled away and the body's gone and he says, "Wow, I don't know what's happening around here, but this needs to be explored." I want to ask you to fit yourself into this story in one of three categories. Are you a skeptic? Why should it be thought incredible that God would raise the dead? Are you a skeptic? Are you a seeker who says, "You know, I'm going to keep my mouth shut on this and I'm going to explore and find out from all the evidence what really happened. I'm a seeker."

Or are you a convinced, committed disciple of Jesus who is demonstrating genuine courage? Not red-blooded, sword-waving, masculine courage, but quiet, patient fortitude born of grace, motivated by gratitude, persistently, quietly sticking up for what's right and continuing to tell the truth even when you're ridiculed and reviled by the people whom you're trying to tell? What are you? Skeptic, seeker, or committed disciple?

Guest (Male): Tellingthetruth.org and the Telling the Truth app are great resources to help you grow in your spiritual life. Packed with videos like Ask the Briscoes, articles from Stuart and Jill, and encouraging audio teaching content, you'll find a treasure trove of resources to encourage you and others in your family. And while you're there, you can also request this month's featured resource when you give a gift to help more people around the world experience life in Christ.

So visit us online or download the app today. We look forward to connecting with you. Thanks for being with us today and join us again next week for more powerful truth from God's word to help you experience life. That's right, here on Telling the Truth.