Q&A 14: What do we say to those who reject the resurrection of Christ?
Vern Peterman · Apr 4, 2010
Questions & Answers, No. 14
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926159174179

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

We have handout number 14, and this may come as a shock, but this one's about the resurrection. Anyway, yeah, it's stunning. One of the things that I found interesting, and this has been a matter of studying it a little at a time over decades, is the evidence for the resurrection of Christ is impressive.

And this, of course, presents it in brief form, but as a matter of fact, it's too much. It was nine pages? Yeah, it's too much. So we won't get it all done, but we'll at least get a good start. And the rest of it's there for you to look at. And the last page is just a list of additional resources, like you want to do more reading, right? So anyway, it's there.

Anybody ever, you know, talk to someone who challenged the truth of the resurrection? Ever talk to anybody who's, you know, no, no, that didn't happen, you know, that's a myth, what not. And in looking at it, I would say this, there is more historical evidence supporting the resurrection than any other event in ancient history. I just put it that simply. You want to believe that there was a guy named Augustus Caesar? Fine. There's more evidence that Christ was raised from the dead. If you look at the substance, the documentation for it, it is phenomenal. Amazing stuff. Let's take a look here.

Yes, and I think that is ultimately the key. is if you want to, you can disbelieve what's right in front of your face. In fact, that's what we're going to see in the passage in the main service, right? The people who were around Jesus up until the very last days before His crucifixion couldn't believe this guy had resurrected. Even though he had resurrected Lazarus About a week before, right? And they saw it. This is pretty amazing. But you're right, Marilyn.

If someone does not want to believe, I guess they cannot believe, right? So what do we say to those who reject the resurrection of Christ? And Marilyn, you're right. If they say, I'm not going to believe no matter what you tell me, I guess they won't believe, right? Do you believe you're sitting in a pew? No. He doesn't, see. See, that's the way it is. If you want to say I'm not, then I guess you're not, you know. Okay. So our starting point here. Here's some of the starting assumptions and defining conditions. We went over this previously.

The New Testament documents when assessed according to the three classical tests of historiography, okay, And we won't go over that here, but that is what's the source, okay? What's the internal evidence for its truth, and what is the external evidence for its truth? Do we have a reliable source, and what's the internal evidence, and what's the external evidence? Those are the three classical tests for documents.

And the bottom line is that's what they use in a court case, okay? It is this document. from a reliable source? Does it have the characteristic of truth? Are there internal evidences that support its truthfulness? Are there external evidences that support its truthfulness?

Those are the three areas. They'll use that in a court case. Looking at, in other words, looking at the document itself. Does the document itself ring true within itself? And then outside, are there outside references that support the veracity of the document?

If I had a statement in the Old Testament that there was a guy named Igor that led the Jews out of Egypt, And then somewhere else it said it was Moses that led the guys out of Egypt. Well, you know, that sounds like it would be a conflict, right? And when you start looking up the name Igor, you say, well, that doesn't sound very Jewish to me, right? So there would be an internal evidence conflict with that. Externally, if you said, no, wait a minute, they brought them out, and let's say that the Bible said that they went from Egypt to Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and then into Israel. You say, wait a minute, something isn't right here, right?

Externally, as you start to check things outside, How does that match up with geography, history, things of that sort? You would say that doesn't square up. So that would be an external test. Is there some external testimony that confirms it? So anyway, those are the tests.

If you compare how the Bible stacks up in terms of the number of documents, most of the ancient documents You know, we've got copies that are, you know, like the number you have on your hand. And you're lucky if you have them within centuries of the original. That's true of a great many of the ancient documents. For the Bible, we have handwritten copies that are now, for the New Testament alone, approaching 25,000 handwritten copies. And instead of centuries and sometimes a thousand years, which is typical between the original and the copy, the earliest copy, with the Bible we've got copies within decades of the original.

So by numbers of copies and the shortness of time, we've got phenomenal evidence. that is, orders of magnitude, and by that, that means multiples of ten, right? Orders of magnitude, greater amount of evidence for what's recorded in the New Testament. The next bullet down there, the events and claims of the Gospels, the Book of Acts, and the New Testament epistles were made within a span of history in which the events, facts, personalities, and elements of geography were all immediately or reasonably verifiable by anyone within the Eastern Mediterranean region.

In the Book of Hebrews, for example, it says that it is evident present tense, it is evident that Jesus was descended from David. Now, how could it be evident? Well, the genealogical records at that time were kept in the temple building, and I'll tell you, on the north side of the temple building, okay? And so someone who said Jesus was not descended from David could go in there and check it out, okay? So when Hebrews was written, that it is evident was quite evident. If you disputed it, go ahead and read the records for yourself. They're there on the north side of the temple building. You could find out for yourself.

Here is Paul who wrote that over 500 people witnessed that Christ was resurrected. You could still talk to Most of them, when he wrote that, you could find hundreds of people, not just a hundred, but hundreds, plural, of people who would say, yeah, I saw Jesus resurrected. And a number of them had also gone in and the tomb was empty.

It says, further, the events were recorded entirely by men who were familiar with the relevant geographical regions and had spent some or all of their lives in those very locations. This was not somebody from some distant place who didn't know the area and didn't know the people, but it was people very familiar with all the details and recorded. Okay, it's this person with this name. It's this location. this title.

The next bullet down, the third bullet, any statement to the effect that Christ's resurrection is simply a myth or a legend does not hold up to a broad spectrum of comparison studies regarding the development of real-world myths and legends. It takes time for myths and legends to develop. Any study of a myth or a legend, and then when was the original When was the original event on which that myth or legend was based? It takes time for a myth or a legend to develop. But to have one that's already full-blown at a time when people, if they wanted to contest it, could, that doesn't work out. There's no record of anything like that ever happening. Myths and legends take time. They take a period of many decades at a minimum to develop. So it doesn't fit. The Apostles' approach to history is not consistent with a claim to mythology or legend.

What did Jesus do As he went about, he had eyewitnesses, right? So what does John write? He says, these things that we have heard and seen and touched, that's what we're writing to you about. Eyewitness testimony. When John begins the book of Revelation, he starts off the first eight verses are in the form of a legal certification that this is true. If you look at the legal certifications of those days, that's how you would go about making a legal statement. I certify under oath that this is true. And that's the form that the first eight verses of Revelation are in.

This is not mythological writing. This is not somebody making up a story. This is somebody who is writing exactly what they saw, exactly what they heard as an eyewitness with other people around who if they said, no that didn't happen that way, they could have done so. But in fact they did not. So given the above constraints, We're now there, right below the third bullet.

Given the above constraints of the time frame, historic veracity, and historical context of the New Testament, the balance of our considerations will now turn to the known obstacles to any proposal that the New Testament's claims of the resurrection of Christ are false or even mistaken. The first one is the disciples' expectations. It's one we're going to look at here, the main service in which we talk about the disciples on the road to Emmaus. There is a great deal of evidence, and it shows up in every single one of the Gospels, and even afterwards. There is a great deal of evidence that none of the disciples were expecting what took place when Jesus was crucified, buried, and resurrected.

None of them. They had no idea. So think about this. Here's Jesus. He's telling them, look, I'm going to be crucified and I'm going to be buried. And what does Peter say? Yeah, Peter says, no way that's going to happen. I won't let it happen. Right? I'll get out my fishing knife and cut off the high servant's ear. That'll stop it, right? No. And so what does Peter do? He opposes it. Okay? And Jesus comes and, you know, you don't get it.

And even when it goes, even after multiple times telling him, this is what's going to happen. He even tells him, I'm going to be turned over to the high priest and this is exactly how it's going to happen. And I'm going to be crucified and I'm going to be buried and then I'm going to raise on the third day. And then when it's right at the critical moment and Peter pulls out the knife and slices off an ear and thinks he's done something, right?

He doesn't get it. You can imagine the Lord just kind of shaking His head, picks up the ear, puts it back on the guy, and they go on. But I mean, multiple times the Lord told these guys what was going to happen. Right? And that's what we'll see in this road to Emmaus passage we're looking at in the main service. Here Jesus meets up with these guys, and they say, boy, we just don't get it.

Instead of being excited about the reports of the resurrection of Christ, It says they are extremely saddened and gloomy because they don't get it. Well, wait a minute. We thought he was going to do this for us and chase the Romans out. And it didn't happen. Instead, they crucified him. It only took a couple soldiers to do it. And he sat there and let them. Right? They had no idea what was going to take place.

The resurrection was not the fulfillment of the disciples' expectations. Exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point. Right? Every single one of the Gospels has multiple recordings. The disciples didn't get it. Even after it all happened, they didn't get it. Right?

Now, turn to page 2 here. Well, there's a quote from Matthew 16. It's certainly not the only passage. It says, from the time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised on the third day. And this is still fairly early in the ministry. And by the way, this chapter 16, He also gave a warning in chapter 12. So he's been starting all the way along just telling them and telling them.

I give you a bunch of other references there in the first couple of lines in the paragraph right below Matthew 16, 21 and 22. And just a listing of the different Gospels that are recorded. And by the way, this is not an exhaustive list. There's more.

He kept telling them, and telling them, and telling them, and they didn't get it, and they didn't get it, and they didn't get it. And by the way, they didn't get it. Okay? So this is one thing. It is not simply a fulfillment of expectations. And let me tell you something else. If you look at the Gospels, think about this.

If the Apostles were trying to show them, which would be typical, trying to show themselves as really sharp guys, Would they record repeatedly that they didn't get it? Not so much, right? If Peter was trying to control what these guys said, and trying to look like he was a really cool dude, would it be recorded that Peter said, I don't even know him, and swore? Would that be what would be written down? No. This was not written to impress people. This is historical fact.

They didn't get it until long after it happened. Because they were expecting something else. Here's Jesus ready to go up from the Mount of Olives and they're saying, is now the time you're going to establish your kingdom? And Jesus says, you know, the Father calls the shots on that. No, we've got something else going on. They still really were not understanding what was happening. So Christ's resurrection is not concocted from the expectations of the disciples. The next one in the middle of page two is the disciples' radically changed character. What happened when it was time for Jesus to get arrested and then go on the cross? What did the disciples do? They all got their swords together and drummed up a great big group of people and got a whole team of soldiers to go in there and do some special ops to get Jesus out, right?

Yeah, here's the Garden of Gethsemane and here's the critical hour and I'm tired, I'll sleep. Here's Jesus on the cross and they run. Yeah, this is scary stuff, right? When you start thinking about what was the cross intended to do? First of all, they would beat the people badly before they put them on the cross. And then when they put them on the cross, you know, various people have suggested, oh they did this or that, you know, so that Jesus just fainted and then they put him in the grave.

The Roman soldiers had an assignment that they were to stay there. And by the way, they weren't supposed to sit down. So if you see drawings that show the soldiers sitting down, they're supposed to stand up until those people were dead. The death was supposed to be as slow and agonizing and painful and shameful as possible. Because the person up on the cross was not just being killed. If they wanted to just kill them, they'd just run them through and they'd be done. The person who was up on the cross was a living billboard.

Don't mess with Rome. Right? Don't mess with Rome. So they want to make it as shameful and ugly as possible. If the guy needs to go to the bathroom, they don't take him down from the cross to let him do his bathroom duty. Right? Where does he do it? Right there. If you're all beaten up and bloody, they don't kind of clean you up before they put you up there, right? No. Oh, and by the way, all of our drawings typically have some kind of loincloth on there.

The Romans were not interested in keeping people decent looking. The more shameful they could make it, the better. So this was intended to be a slow, agonizing death. To be a public billboard. That's why they didn't do it in some secret place. Out there in some public place where the roads crossed. where everybody was coming and going and would have to look at this. That's where they put it. Because it's a billboard. Don't mess with Rome. Right? Then here is the disciples and what do they do?

After all this running, now, and I'm going to move on to page 3. There is there on the top of page 3, Acts chapter 4, 13-20. I won't read through all of it, but take note of what's in bold there. Now as they, the Sanhedrin, this is the Jewish leaders, observed the, what is it that Peter and John had?

Confidence. Yes. Does that sound like the same guys that ran? Does that sound like the same guys who fell asleep? Not so much. the confidence of Peter and John, and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed. Why were they amazed? What was amazing about these guys? Pardon? The Lord was on the cross, and what was their response when the Lord was on the cross?

What's that? Yeah, I'm out of here. This isn't what I signed up for, right? So these guys who would run, these guys, oh, I don't even know him. Now they're turning around. It doesn't matter how you threaten them. They're boldly proclaiming the truth. Boldly. began to recognize them as having been with Jesus. Now, let me ask you this question. When you've been with Jesus, how do you look? When you've been with Jesus, how do you look? It was unmistakable.

These guys were not running for the weeds. These guys were not hiding out in the trees. These guys were recognizable as having been with Jesus. Ah, I recognize these guys. And they're standing out there and they're not saying, I never knew him. They're boldly, confidently proclaiming, yes, I knew him and I still do. Because he's resurrected.

And by the way, you know that too, right? Look at verse 20, the bottom of that passage in Acts 4. For we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard. Okay? Compelling eyewitness testimony. Or ear witness if you want to call it that. Okay? Compelling testimony. We can't stop speaking about what we've seen and heard. They are radically changed people.

Farther down that passage, we have it quoted in Acts 4, 27-31. I'll read the part that's bolded there. This is a prayer, and this is in verse 29. And now, Lord, take note of their threats and grant that your bondservants may speak your word with all confidence. And then at the last line there, They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the Word of God with boldness. No running. No excuses. No, I don't know him. No cursing. Boldness. Confidence.

One cannot read through the book of Acts how these men changed from scattering, excuse me, one can read through the Book of Acts, how these men changed from scattering cowards who denied even knowing Christ, to men who boldly proclaimed his death, burial, and resurrection, even to the point of proclaiming it at the cost of their lives. From the records that we have, either in the Bible or outside of it, John the Apostle was the last one to die, and the only one to die a natural death. All the rest died for this message. Let me ask you this. Are you going to die for a lie?

Something you know isn't true? Hey, we cooked up this scheme, you know? We cooked up this scheme and, you know, yeah, but when the going gets rough, you know, we're not going to stick with it. No. They didn't cook this up. And that's why The Apostles, John accepted. The Apostles died giving their testimony. The record is that Matthew was being staked to the ground with wooden stakes, and as they were driving the stakes through his body, he was screaming out the Gospel. With boldness. With boldness. That's a real different kind of guy. Yes, there are multiple different accounts. They're written records.

Outside of Scripture, the only Apostle's death that is explicitly recorded in Scripture is James. Interestingly, of the Apostles, you have the two brothers, James and John. James was the first one to die, Acts chapter 12. John was the last one to die. James died a death of a martyr. John died a natural death. So here's these two brothers that are kind of like bookends, but contrasting bookends. One dies a martyr's death, the other dies of old age.

So to answer your question, there are various records, written records and accounts, and although they've been collected, They were not all written by one person. One of the examples, it's interesting, Thomas went to India. The records have it, and what's interesting is that's not only the case so far as the written records, but I met a fellow who was a pastor over there in India, and he said, yeah, that's the account that we have over in India among the Christians there. Thomas, remember the one that doubted? Thomas was the one who brought the gospel to India.

Interestingly enough, a communist Chinese professor has looked at the gravestones in ancient Chinese graveyards and he has found from the late 80s AD, so this is when John was still alive, he has found New Testament Bible stories on some Chinese gravestones. from about 10 years before, almost 10 years before John died. The gospel got there somehow.

And if it isn't directly from Thomas, because we don't have record that he went that far, it must have been somebody that he had influenced most likely. So the records are available. They're outside of James, outside of scripture. They are recorded and those have been collected.

We actually, in our church history, did a lesson on how all the apostles died and where they died and how it happened. The next thing here is the disciples' individual backgrounds. There are certain points of commonality about the disciples, but they were of varying individual backgrounds.

And just thinking about that, what was Matthew's occupation? He was a tax collector for the Romans. So here is Matthew, the tax collector for the Romans. By the way, what do people think of tax collectors? Okay? Tax collectors and sinners was like the standard term for the lowest of the low, right?

So here's Matthew. But this is someone who the Jews would look at as having bowed down to the Romans, right? Completely awful. Now, let's look at the other extreme. There was a guy named Simon and Simon the, what is it? Tell me about the zealots. What were the zealots trying to do? Throw out the Romans. Get those Romans out of here. So Jesus goes and picks Matthew, who has bowed down to the Romans enough to become a part of their system. and Simon the Zealot, who would just as soon kill to get rid of anybody who bows down to the Romans.

Jesus says, I'll pick both of them. Now, I don't know how this went. I kind of get a sense of humor about it. But can you imagine when Jesus sent the disciples out two by two, how he paired them up? Can you imagine, hey, I think I'll pair up Matthew and Simon and send them out together, right? Oh boy, this is going to work out good, right? Or here's another one.

How would you like to have been the guy who got paired up with Judas, only later on to find out this guy is the one who betrayed Jesus? Wouldn't that give you the creeps? But if you start to think about it, these guys, yeah there was some commonality, they were guys from Galilee, but there were things about them that you'd say, this isn't all the same kind of guy. How are guys with this different a background, even, here's Matthew and Simon, that opposed a background going to get together and cook up this scheme about this guy that rose from the dead?

Does that sound feasible to you? Is that going to sell? Are you going to buy that story? Oh, these guys just cooked it up. Yeah, tax collectors sell it. They just got together and said, hey, let's make up a story about this guy that rose from the dead. And by the way, let's die for it, too. This doesn't wash. This doesn't make good sense, right? Their backgrounds don't mix. They would have been at odds with one another. The cost of the disciples' claims is on page four. So I'm moving ahead here.

And this addresses the question that you had, Pat, about the death of the apostles. The death of James, brother of John, recorded in Acts 12, 1 and 2, by order of Herod Agrippa. As far as we know, only John, excuse me, John, the brother of James, died a natural death. All the other apostles from any documentation we have died claiming the resurrection of Christ. And some of them were crucified. The account goes Peter crucified upside down, by the way, at his own request. It is contrary to all known human motivations to endure torture and persecution to the point of death for a fraud or a doubtful event.

In a police situation in which multiple people have been involved, what do they do to try to get the case broken apart? They try to get one of the people to fold, right, to turn. And how do they do that? They put pressure on them of various kinds. You know, hey, if you'll turn on these other guys, we'll, you know, cut you a special deal. But usually, it's not a, you know, if you fold, you won't die. In this case, you're talking about 11 guys that could have folded.

They said no. We know what we saw. We know, this isn't what we're expecting, but we know that Christ rose from the dead. We saw him in multiple instances. And these were not people who were gullible. And you hear some rumor about, hey, I heard Jesus rose from the dead. Oh, okay, that's good for me. No. It's one of those things you imagine. Here's Thomas. Ten guys that he's spent the last three years with say, we've seen Jesus resurrected. And he says, nah. Right? Ten guys he's spent the last three years with are all telling him Jesus was raised from the dead. And he says, nah. I'm not believing it. So Jesus has to come and say, check it out for yourself. See my side. See my hands. I'm not talking guys that are gullible. I'm talking people that are, in a sense, convinced against their will.

How about Jesus' brother James? Unbeliever. We were studying in our home study this last Thursday in John chapter 7. James was among the other brothers trying to essentially get Jesus killed at the beginning of John chapter 7. He didn't believe, it says in 7.5.

He did when he saw his brother resurrected. And by the way, he also gave his life for that belief. Josephus records how in the early 60s, I'm not talking about our 60s, in the early 60s AD, James was killed basically for his faith. Did you say James tried to kill his own brother? Yes, you can look at that in John chapter 7, verse 4 verses. And verse 5 says he didn't believe. None of them believed.

But basically they're trying to talk him into going down to Jerusalem and get himself publicly known because then he'd get killed. And eventually he did get killed. But it wasn't as a victim, right? Jesus didn't die a victim's death, right? He didn't. He volunteered. For the joy set before him, he voluntarily endured the cross. He didn't go kicking and screaming, no, no, no!

He said, put the nails in. In page 5, we have a section that begins with the ability to readily verify the disciples' claims. Certainly regarding the apostles' claims to those living in Israel, the truth or falsehood of their historic claims was easily and entirely verifiable. If I told you, you know, when I was a kid, when I was a kid, I used to talk on the cell phone all the time.

Right? Yeah, that's right. You'd say, yeah, right, and you ought to. Because that doesn't check out, right? And that's the thing. If something that's completely false and phony is proclaimed within a context where, hey, everybody knows that's not true, all you have to do is shut it down.

All you have to do is produce Jesus' body. All you have to do is go to the tomb and say, He was put in here. All these people saw He was put in here. There's the seal of Rome still on it. He's still in there. That's all they would have had to do. It would have been easy.

And here the disciples, the apostles, go into the temple area and they're all standing together and they say, We've seen Jesus raised from the dead. And all the leaders there are saying, oh no you haven't. Is that what they're saying? They're not saying nothing. Why? Because they can't.

It would be easy to disprove and disclaim right in the context of, look, here's Jerusalem, here's the place. Here's where all the people are. You've got plenty of public testimony right here where you could get several people up here who all come up with a consistent testimony. No, Jesus didn't rise from the dead. I stood there and saw Him go in there and I stood by the grave and it's still sealed up and you guys are just full of it. But they didn't. They couldn't. If you look in the accounts, there's nothing of it.

Let's go through the bullets here. The kinds of verification available in the area of Jerusalem would be the testimony of Jewish and Roman forces who arrested Jesus and were involved in some aspect of the trials. How many people were there to arrest Jesus? Anybody recall the number? About 600. There was lots of people there who could have testified. Oh yeah, I was there for the arrest. Was it a real private affair when Jesus was interrogated by Pilate? No, it was out there public, right? And what was everybody screaming? Crucify Him! And it was a crowd, not two guys.

And then there was the soldiers. It's right there at Antonia Fortress, right next to the Temple area. It's on the northwest area on the edge of the Temple Mount. Right there, there's all the soldiers. And think, there were soldiers that whipped. There were the soldiers that took him out to the cross. Four of them. One was a centurion. And they're standing around, and they have to do it.

The centurion came and verified, yep, Jesus is dead. Therefore, those who were to bury him were given permission, right? Yep, Jesus is dead. You had a group of people there, all involved in the burial. You had the soldiers who were there watching the tomb. with the seal of Rome and the soldiers numbered somewhere between 12 and 16 soldiers that were stationed there.

All could very easily have said, hey, I stood in front of that for days and nobody came and bothered that to them. They could have said that. Is that what they said? No. It would have been easy to just bring up a few of those guys, right? Just bring a few and the disciples' claims of He's resurrected would have just gone away. But that's not what happened. So you've got all these different people who could testify to various aspects of this process going on. They didn't say anything. They didn't speak up when they had the opportunity.

Here's the book of Hebrews. Here's the claim that He's descended from David. Real easy to just go over to the temple and look up the records and say, no he's not! Right? Never happened. Never happened. Just like if Vern comes up and says, hey, when I was a kid we used to talk on cell phones all the time. Right? You're going to look at me and say, uh-uh. And if I insist, then you get several people who told me that I'm just full of beans. Horse feathers, right? And instead, they're quiet. The next one.

Testimony of eyewitnesses to the crucifixion, including the chief priests, Roman soldiers, Simon of Cyrene, and the women. The testimony of those who had carried out Jesus' burial, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, and possibly unnamed others, including their servants. As well as the testimony of the women who observed where Jesus was buried. women, plural, right? The testimony of the four to sixteen Roman soldiers who guarded the tomb, which was sealed with pilot's seal.

The typical thing was to have several Roman soldiers going in shifts. So some were around but resting while others were standing on guard. And by the way, failure to guard the tomb not certainly, but often resulted in death penalty for the soldiers. So they weren't just sort of casually doing this and saying, you know, hey, I didn't sign up for this and run. No, these were guys who were used to death and standing at the cost of their lives to do their job.

Okay, the next one, testimony of the women and disciples who saw the empty tomb They have the references there. And notice for a lot of these that there's several of the Gospels, often times four, that have plural testimony here. Testimony of the 500 plus people who saw Christ resurrected. And as Paul said when he wrote this, and many of whom are still alive, even at the time of Paul's writing. The testimony of the disciples who saw Christ ascend. That was 11 of them, right?

The Roman legal documents regarding the sentence of death and the crucifixion, possibly also the sign over Jesus' head as ordered by Pilate. Pull up the records. The next one, second to last bullet, the Jewish legal documents including the genealogies of the Jews, including Christ, which were kept in the temple in Jerusalem until its destruction in 70 AD. And the last bullet, the ability to visit the sites of the Last Supper, the Garden of Gethsemane, the places of trial including Caiaphas' home and the Fortress Antonia.

And by the way, all those are places you can go to now. Check it out. The crucifixion, there are a couple of candidate sites for that. The empty tomb, a couple for those as well. And the paths traveled between each of these locations. Next page there, page six.

Visiting the sites is done by modern investigators, judges, and juries at times in order to place the other evidence and testimony in context. Site visits would afford confirmation of testimony regarding physical proximity, the setting, and other relationships.

Luke is the one New Testament author who, likely not having been present at the time of the original events, did this kind of on-site investigation. And he tells about in Luke 1, 1-4, how he carefully investigated everything. At one point where Paul is in Jerusalem, but being sent over to Caesarea on the coast, Luke records an official Roman document. The contents of that document is recorded in Acts. So this guy Luke was not just making this stuff up. He went around and checked out witnesses. He checked out official documents and got things down. Very well, carefully recorded.

We see in the middle of page 6 the lack of viable objections, given the ability to verify numerous details of the events, places, and persons from the arrests or the ascension of Christ through multiple and redundant means, it would be expected that anyone who found a proof of falsehood or even a real discrepancy in the Apostles' claims had ample opportunity to bring such evidence to the public.

We find no such evidence either in the written record within the New Testament or any other existing secular document of the first century in spite of the Apostles' appeals to the people and the evidence at hand. Again and again and again and again. Nobody at that time comes up with evidence to the contrary. It's not recorded in the New Testament that they did. It's not recorded in the secular record that they did. Both the Jews and the Romans would have had motivation to discredit the apostles' claims had any contrary evidence been available.

How many were on the Sanhedrin? About 70, right? And here was Caiaphas who was kind of at the top of the pyramid among these Sanhedrin. wouldn't they have been motivated to squash any claims of a resurrection? Do you think they would? Yeah, they would have.

These guys were really mad enough to turn this guy over to the Romans and keep screaming, Crucify Him! Crucify Him! Those kind of guys are not, a few days later, going to turn around and say, Oh, I'm not going to do anything about these disciples who are making fools of us. How about the Roman soldiers who were under orders to make sure this guy has killed the centurion who's certified to pilot? Pardon? What's that? The Roman soldiers, because they went back and reported that, you know, hey, the tomb got opened and all that.

Basically, we're told, don't worry, we'll cover for you. But it's real interesting, rather than the Jewish leaders saying, oh, well, heavens, I guess what Jesus said was true. Right? Instead of recognizing that this is true, instead they said, don't worry, we'll keep it quiet and we'll cover it for you. Don't worry. But nobody came up and said, hey, you know, this is all nonsense. Jesus is still in the tomb. Or even the one, you know, we saw the disciples carry the body away. So this is all bogus. You don't find that they did that.

But were the Roman soldiers obligated to do any more than witness the death, stick him in the tomb and leave? Did they have to stay there? No, there's actually two different assignments of the Roman soldiers in the death of Jesus. Part one was the four soldiers headed by a centurion who were responsible for killing Jesus and the two thieves on either side of him.

And they were to do the crucifixion duty and then stay there until those people were dead. Until they knew the people were dead. And if it meant they had to stay there for days, they stayed there for days. So that's part one. The second group was the soldiers who were commissioned to stand guard over this tomb that had the seal of Rome on it. And those were likely a different group of soldiers altogether. And like I say, their typical pattern was to go in shifts so that, you know, you have fresh troops and the other guys would be present but resting while the other guys who were on duty would be watching. Sit there and babysit this body that's going to be dead forever. Yeah, the Roman soldiers Strangely enough, they were given very odd duties. And they worked very hard, I'll give them that.

Well, the thing is, if you look at it, because of the concern, because Jesus said, I'm going to resurrect, right? And as a matter of fact, that was the taunt at his crucifixion. So because of the concern and the idea that somebody is going to do something with this body, they had the tomb with the seal of Rome on it and the soldiers, under serious consequence, and in some cases we have records that they were actually killed for failure to do their duty, the soldiers were to watch it and make sure nobody disturbs that seal. What they knew or believed might be tough to say, because they don't say it.

But their job is, hey, I don't care. This is my job. This is what I'm going to do. And I'm going to do it, because otherwise they're going to kill me or do something awful to me. So I'm going to do this. I'm going to make sure nobody messes with this tomb. That's their job.

And their duties will be over. they can go home because he didn't resurrect in three days. In other words, like Pat was saying, how long did he have to stay there? He had to stay there for three days. Yeah, the bottom line is that was his claim, right? So you don't have to stay there for weeks and weeks and weeks. All you got to do is say, OK, here's the period of time when he said he'd resurrect. We just got to stick around for a few days here.

We're going to camp out here at the tomb. Isn't there still a guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier today? I mean, that's kind of a duty thing. Yeah, we have a guard with all the different procedures that go along with it at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Somewhat of a parallel. And it's a continuous duty with honors and even penalties for failure to perform. So if you look at all these guys, failure to do what they were supposed to do had serious consequences for these guys.

So we have the records by and about the witnesses. This is the last heading on page six. The primary records by and about the witnesses of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection are the Gospel of Matthew, who was one of the disciples, the Gospel of Mark, likely a witness, Mark 1452 there, and an associate of Barnabas, also a relative, Colossians 4.10 indicates that, associate of Paul and Luke and Peter. And then it goes on to page 7, The bullet there, the Gospel of Luke, an associate of Paul. See Dr. Luke's use of we and us when writing about Paul's journeys and actions in Acts. We have the passages recorded there. The Gospel of John, who was one of the disciples. The Book of Acts, written by Luke, an associate of Paul. 1 Corinthians 15, 3-7, written by Paul. And numerous other references in the epistles by the apostles, Peter, Paul, excuse me, Paul, Peter, John, and other direct associates of the apostles.

So multiple testimony. So the documents we have are all either written by direct eyewitnesses of the facts or by those who had direct and substantial contact with those who are eyewitnesses. Multiple eyewitnesses or by those who had direct and significant, not just held, I visited this guy this afternoon but spent lots of time with these guys.

Check the records. Here's Dr. Luke recording official Roman documents in Acts. Very carefully checked. Alright. There's more to this. We don't have more time. So we're going to stop. People are pressing their noses against the glass. And that's bad because they're going to have to clean it. Right? Okay.

So we're going to pray and call it good here. Lord, we thank you for just the abundance of evidence that you indeed rose. But looking at the evidence is not to be the end for us. You have called for us to believe it. Believe the evidence. It's not gullibility. It's not a leap of faith. It's strong, powerful, substantial evidence that you indeed rose from the dead with all the consequences of the scripture reveals. We thank you for it. We thank you for this time together. In Jesus' name, amen.