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Part 1 of 16
Cross to Commission series, Final two messages
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Right now, it's springtime in Georgia, and no matter how many times you wash your car, it will be green within hours or a few days. The pollen is falling on everything, and you cannot deny it. You can act like it doesn't exist, wash your car as if it doesn't, put something outside pretending the pollen isn't there—but whatever is outside, the pollen will remind you that it's in the air.
I've shed many tears this week because I feel there is apathy, lethargy, and blindness in the Christian church. The pollen of end-time events is falling on all of that apathy and ignorance, and we can't explain it away.
If you forget everything I tell you today, I want to say to my church family locally and globally: this is the hour for us to go past these gatherings into our prayer closets and cry out for the salvation of family members and friends who are far from God. This is the hour to take inventory of our lives, our walks, our activities, and ask ourselves: are the things we're doing going to matter? Are the things we're teaching our children really going to matter in the greater scheme of what's happening in the earth?
From wars shaping up to be almost World War III, to Israel in the middle of conflict—which we should always pay attention to when that nation is in trouble—to government actions that are spilling right out of eschatological doctrines: we're driving around life acting like our car's not dirty, but the pollen of end times is all over it.
We could either be blind to that pollen, or acknowledge that we are in the final hours of the church age. Maybe something would shift in the way we pray, the way we live, the way we're discipling our children, and the way we govern ourselves in this room.
There's nothing we're hearing in this hour more valuable and more important than just the scriptures read, the scriptures explained, the scriptures exhorted, and the scriptures followed. The whole world is green, sitting under the pollen of the end times. You can wipe away as much as you want—it's everywhere. Only the ignorant, the unbelieving, and the biblically illiterate can't see that pollen in the air.
Family, we have come now to the final two messages in a three-year journey through the book of Matthew. What I want to do today is serve as a capstone on the most important text of this entire study—which Elder Milton preached for us last week. I'm coming today simply to put the period on that text.
Our text today is Matthew 28:11-15, and it concerns the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Let me be very clear:
Without the resurrection, there is no Christianity. The resurrection of Christ is the foundation of all Christian theology. Without the resurrection, all these scriptures are in vain. Paul says, "If Christ is not raised, you and I have believed in vain."
If Christ is not raised, then our gatherings mean nothing. Our podcasts, conferences, and books mean nothing. If Christ is not raised, I am wasting my time proclaiming the gospel to you. If Christ is not raised, then Jesus is no different than other founders of world religions who came, lived, died, and are still dead.
These 66 ancient documents would mean nothing if Christ is not raised. The resurrection of Christ is the capstone of the single most important event in human history. There is nothing that has happened in human history more important than the resurrection of Christ.
For if Christ is not raised, Paul said we are among all people most miserable. We would have attended gatherings, sacrificed, given offerings, lived sacrificially, and labored—all only to die. If Christ is not raised, there is no gospel proclamation. The songs we just sung are empty.
When we come to Matthew Chapter 28, we are coming to the apex of all Christian doctrine. We're coming to the apex of all Christian theology. There is no more important text in all of Scripture than what we read in Matthew Chapter 28. Even all the accounts we read about creation and promises mean nothing if what we read in Matthew Chapter 28 is a lie.
We as believers can't be running around trying to make arguments for Christianity and don't understand the significance of the resurrection.
In my lifetime, I have sat in rooms and stared at the dead bodies of men, women, and children in boxes. I've attended many funerals, and every time I do, I'm reminded of our mortality—the sentence of death upon humanity.
I recall one of the last important funerals I attended was the funeral of my own father, who transitioned in December 2012, just three months after I became a pastor. He did not live long enough to see what God would do with his son. I remember sitting in that room staring at that coffin with my father's body, weeping over the deep grief I felt at our separation.
Many of you can identify with that pain. You know what it is to sit in a room and stare at a box and grapple with the deep pain of separation from a loved one's death—something we were never supposed to deal with in this life. Sin created that for us.
In all of my life, I have yet to meet anyone who has come back from a funeral to testify of what life was like on the other side. My father is not here. He has not resurrected from the dead. He is not alive in the earth.
Although there are testimonies in history of men who have been resurrected from the dead—like Lazarus under the ministry of Christ, and others allegedly under the ministry of men like Smith Wigglesworth—no resurrection in history has ever been as important or moved world history like the resurrection of one man in the year AD 33. That is the only resurrection in history that has ever affected all of humanity: the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ in the first century AD.
Now, listen to what really bothers me: people arguing whether or not Jesus is real. Never argue with people about whether Jesus is real. That is a dumb argument and an exercise of futility.
Do you argue whether Muhammad is real? No, because there's historicity for his life. We know he was born and lived in the 600s AD, dying around 632 AD. Do you argue whether George Washington is real? No, because we accept him as a historical figure who died in 1799.
To argue if Jesus is real is a dumb argument. There is documented evidence for his life. The reason we talk like that is because we preach him ethereally, like he was not a human being who lived a physical life.
The historicity of Jesus is undisputable. We know that he was a historical figure who lived in the first century and died in AD 33. That is a historical fact accepted the world over. His death by crucifixion in AD 33 is a historical fact accepted the world over.
But the resurrection of Jesus—also a historical fact—is not accepted the world over. Men all around the world argue about whether the resurrection really did take place. Although there is documented evidence for the resurrection, you will bump into people on college campuses and in chats who believe Jesus was a historical figure and accept that he was crucified, but will not accept that he was raised from the dead.
Why? If they accept the resurrection, they must accept the whole of Scripture as truth, and they do not want to accept the Scripture in truth. So they push back against the resurrection. In their mind, he is no greater than Muhammad, Joseph Smith, Buddha, or Confucius. He's a man like them. He did not come out of a grave.
In the 19th century, rationalism exploded, and people tried to explain away the resurrection. One theory was that Jesus fell into a coma on the cross, and while in the tomb, he revived himself, moved a stone despite his beaten and mutilated body, came out, saw people outside for 40 days, and then died.
Another theory was that all 500 plus people who saw him alive all hallucinated. They were all sniffing the same thing, all doing the same thing, and over 500 people all hallucinated about Christ being alive.
From street corners to stages all around the world, people argue about the resurrection of Christ. When they argue about it, they cite the eyewitnesses—Matthew and John, the 500 plus eyewitnesses, the women who went to the tomb.
But there is another group of people who testified of the resurrection: the least likely people who could ever testify to the resurrection. In fact, their testimony is probably the most important, because they had the least to gain from telling the truth.
We love to talk about Matthew and John. They loved him. We love to talk about the women. They loved him. We love to talk about the 500 plus disciples. They loved him. But what about the testimony of enemies? Probably the best evidence for the resurrection did not come from friends of Jesus. Probably the best evidence came from the enemies of Jesus—people who had nothing to gain from talking about what they saw, did not love him, did not care about him, and had no reason to lie.
Matthew records the eyewitness testimony of the most unlikely witnesses of the resurrection: the enemies of Christ.
Look at Matthew 28:11: "While they were going, behold, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests all that had taken place."
Who are they? The women. All of this happened in the darkness of Sunday morning—pitch black outside, only moonlight and starlight. A group of women went to the tomb, not believing Jesus was raised. They were going there with spices to finish what they started. Jews believed that if a body laid dead for four days, it would be stinking nasty. So before the fourth day, on the third day, they went back to anoint him one more time.
They arrived, saw the tomb open and Jesus missing. They were worried and concerned. As they left, Jesus told them, "Go and testify that I am raised."
In the middle of the night on Sunday morning, a group of women ran through the streets of Jerusalem with the truth, with the facts of the resurrection. At the same time, a group of guards were also running through the streets of Jerusalem with the same facts about the resurrection.
One group was running through the city with the facts for the purpose of truth—to reveal. Another group was running through the city with the same facts to conceal. Both groups running through Jerusalem with the same facts, but with different motives.
This is how you can have facts and have wrong motives with those facts.
Husband and wives know something about this. I know what it is to have facts and get into an argument with my wife—not just to have understanding, but to win, crushing her in the process with those facts. You can have facts with wrong motives.
Some of you have been on the receiving end of facts, but the person's heart wasn't right. They were giving you facts, but their motives were not pure, and the outcome was not good. Although you heard facts, they were not received with the right motives.
You'll run into relational tension, marital tension, tension on the job—issues with people who have facts but with wrong motives. Instead of producing good with those facts, they produce wickedness.
This is like parents who manipulate children when they're divorced. They give their children facts with the wrong motive: to turn them against the spouse. "Your mama left me. She did. But tell them why. Your mother abandoned our family. Yes, she did. Tell them why the mother left: because you a fool and a poor leader."
Facts don't mean right motives.
Two groups of people ran through Jerusalem streets with the same facts: the tomb is empty. A group of women running to reveal. A group of men running to conceal. They arrived at the gathering place of the chief priests, the pastors of Israel, and told them all that had happened.
The guards were terrified. When you've watched a scary movie, you know what it is to be walking in your house and be terrified. These guards were in pitch blackness, and then out of nowhere, a being fell from heaven with lightning all around him, landed on the tomb, and they passed out like dead men. So afraid their hearts failed them, they fell down unconscious.
The guards came straight to the house of the pastors of Israel and told them everything. If they told the chief priests everything that happened, what did the chief priests hear?
"We were sitting there guarding the tomb like you asked us to. We were taking shifts throughout the night. When we least expected it, we saw a flash of light fall from heaven. We were terrified. Whatever that thing was, it landed on the tombstone and rolled away the big stone. Then we looked inside, and the body of Christ was gone."
The guards were the first to see the events of the resurrection—before the women, before any disciples of Jesus. The first people to see the events of the resurrection were the enemies of Jesus, who had nothing to gain by lying.
They ran straight to the pastors of Israel and said, "We saw an angel. We saw the tomb open up. We looked inside. We saw a man walk out. We don't know. But that body we were guarding is not there. He's gone."
Roman soldiers who just put him to death three days ago were the first to see all of the resurrection before anybody else. The ground shook under them. Something appeared in the dark. They were terrified. It opened the tomb. A man came out. They don't know what happened to him. This is what they said, but he's gone.
Facts. The facts are Roman soldiers saw an empty tomb. They told the pastors everything they saw.
Then what did the chief priests do with the information of the resurrection?
Verse 12: "And when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers and said, 'Tell people this instead: His disciples came by night and stole him away while we slept. If this comes to the governor's ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.'"
Listen to me: everybody watch the evidence that Christ was raised beyond Matthew, beyond John, beyond the 500 witnesses, beyond the women—it's the fact that the chief priests created a lie.
If they did not believe he was raised, there would be no need to change the story. These men obviously believed what the soldiers told them. If they did not believe that Jesus was raised, they would not have created a different narrative.
These were the same men who watched Jesus teach and preach for three years. These are the same men who heard about his miracles. These are the same men who put him on a cross. These are the same men who saw darkness cover the land. These are the same men who felt the earth shake beneath their feet. These are the same men who saw the temple curtain ripped from top to bottom.
These men knew he was the Son of God. They knew he had been raised from the dead. Now they had to make a decision: what would they do with that information?
So they called a meeting. The chief priests got the elders, and all the leaders of the church came together. "We have just killed the Son of God. If the story gets out that he was raised—and you believe it—we will lose all of our authority. We'll lose our titles. We're going to lose our position. We want to control Israel."
Watch what God was giving them in this moment: one last opportunity to repent. Why? Because they got the news of the resurrection before the disciples. Now God is giving the leaders of Israel all the facts of the Son of God and his resurrection. And what do they do with those facts?
They make a decision to do three things:
Like the same thing isn't happening right now. We don't have spiritual leaders who use temple money to abuse people and engineer doctrines that are lies. Spending money to export lies. Deceiving people from the platform. Manipulating people.
We have corrupt priests today who work around money and lies to spiritually abuse people with no fear of the person they've got to face in judgment when they die. We only get away with that foolishness temporarily.
They bribed those soldiers. They spent money on that bribe—a manufacturer of a lie to cover the facts about the resurrection.
We have people in platforms doing the same thing today: manufacturing lies to cover the truth about God's word. Afraid to deal with the truth. What should have moved them toward humility and repentance instead moved them toward pride, arrogance, and lies.
Before you critique them, you and I do the same thing. Before you pounce on them, let's talk about you.
What do you do with truth when it comes? Do you push back with pride and arrogance? Manufacture a false narrative above the word of God?
The word says forgive, but you create your own narrative why you should not. The word says live holy, but you create your own narrative why you should not. The word says love, but we create our own narratives why we should not. And on and on and on.
You just love hearing sermons. But when it comes time to really deal with the truth, we create our own narratives to suppress the truth of God's word so we can live out lies. We do the same thing.
When truth comes to you—in a conversation, in coaching, on a phone call, in a text, in a sermon—do you suppress that truth to engineer your own narrative?
You know who else does that? The devil does that to you and me all the time. He's always trying to suppress truth in your heart, engineering lies in your mind to lead us astray. And we be entertaining those lies.
"Do this and I'll hook you up with that," says the devil. Isn't that what he did to Jesus in the wilderness? "Kneel down and confess. I'll give you all the trinkets and toys of the world if you just bow down and worship me."
Before I read this last part, I need to point this out: I personally don't understand how human beings could see the sun go black in the middle of the day, experience two earthquakes, get news of an empty tomb, and still not repent.
You know what it tells us about humanity? It's easier for us to believe lies than the truth.
On social media all the time—TikTok, Instagram, Facebook—people are saying the craziest things, and when truth comes, they resist truth. That's why I'm persecuted. People call me a false prophet. How? When I encourage people to read the scriptures for themselves.
There is no false prophet begging people to read the Bible. False prophets don't even open the Scriptures. They just talk for 45 minutes and sway you without the Bible.
You know why they attack me in culture? Because men don't like truth. We're drinking lies like water and spitting out truth like it's poison. And you wonder why the church is in the condition it's in right now.
Now, look at the stupidity of this cover-up. The chief priests told the soldiers: "Take this money and go out and tell everybody you were sleeping. While you were sleeping, his disciples came and stole the body."
How idiotic is this?
First: No Roman soldier will ever be sleeping on the job because in Rome, men were killed for failing a mission. Because Roman soldiers were put to death for failing, there's no way they would be sleeping on the job.
Second: "Tell them the disciples stole his body." The same cowards that ran when he was being beaten. The same cowards that ran when he was on the cross. Now all of a sudden they're going to come and overpower some Roman guards like they're thugs, open a tomb they couldn't move, and steal a body? They didn't have the courage to do that. That's stupid.
Third: "Tell them that while you were sleeping, the disciples stole the body. How would you know they did that if you were sleeping? You don't know what's happening when you're sleeping!"
The fact that the leaders of Israel would go through such lengths to construct a lie is probably the greatest evidence that this really happened.
If they had the body, why not just produce it? If the body was missing, only two people could have taken it: either his friends or his enemies. The body's not there. It's forensics.
His friends couldn't have taken it because they were cowards. If his enemies had the body, then produce it. That would crush the church. There would be no Book of Acts. If you have the body, produce the body—no Book of Acts.
The fact that the enemy would go through great lengths to crush something must be a signal to us: it must be truth there. It's why he always attacks 2819. It's why they use my name to make money.
Flies only hang around light. If there's no truth, there's nothing for the devil to attack. He doesn't attack what he owns.
The fact that these men would go through all of this work to cover what the soldiers told them is one of the greatest evidences in history that there was no body to be found—that the enemies of Christ prove in their foolishness that he was resurrected from the dead.
Verse 15 says: "So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story has been spread among the Jews to this day."
When Matthew wrote this, he was writing in the AD 60s—30 years after the resurrection. 30 years after the resurrection, the story was still circulating from this moment: that the disciples stole the body of Jesus. Although nobody was ever found to prove this for three decades.
Imagine somebody lying on you and your family still talking about it three decades later. For three decades, this story was still circulating in Israel. Justin Martyr wrote in the hundreds AD that this story was still circulating. You have men like Josephus, a Jewish historian, who wrote about the resurrection of Christ in his own books—biblical and non-biblical sources that testify to the resurrection of Christ.
Lee Stroble, a former atheist, investigated the resurrection of Christ and wrote in his book The Case for Christ about documented evidence for the resurrection of Jesus.
The eyewitnesses testify: the women testify, the 500 disciples testify, Matthew and John testify, his enemies testify.
It's possible that archaeology may have testified. A burial cloth was found and emerged around the 1300s. The imprint on that cloth was the imprint of a man bearing all the evidence of a person who was crucified. This is called the Shroud of Turin. It's on display in glass, and very few eyes can see it. On that shroud, they found pollen from the Middle East and traces of blood.
There have been arguments for decades about whether it's authentic, but in the image there is the imprint of a man wrapped in that cloth, a space in his hands where spikes would have gone through. People argue that it can't be real because the image on the cloth is 3D, and that kind of technology did not exist in those days. So how could a 3D image end up on a cloth?
I know of no other way except a burst of light would have left the image on the cloth. It's very possible that the Father may have left in the earth a picture of the Son stained on a rag to keep shutting down the lies of humanity that say Christ was not raised from the dead.
I close this message with one challenge to you.
Men all around the world are spending money to export lies. I would to God the people of God all around the world would give up their own resources, their own prayers, whatever it takes to export truth.
While people in society are doing everything they can on social media to spread lies, we will be the voices in these last days to propagate the truth. We will tell of the Lord Jesus Christ. We will pray and push forth the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ. We will give offerings to support gospel ministry that puts forth the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We will be the men, women, and children that give of our lives in these last days to export truth. We will say:
Why? Because he is alive.
If you believe that, give him praise in this place right now.
We stand on the truth that Christ was raised as the Son of God and that he is alive and coming. So the Scriptures are true. His promises are true. His word is true. Revelation is true. Genesis to Revelation is true. All of it is true because he's alive.
I pray something would burn in our hearts right now—a type of gospel boldness in the resurrection of Christ that makes us stand on that word, stand on the truth, stand in the face of the lies of culture. We serve a resurrected Savior who is seated at your right hand, who has gone to prepare a place for us, and who is coming back for us.
Until he comes, may we labor in humility, in unity, and in sacrifice through our prayers, our serving, our giving, and our sacrifices to push out the truth of Jesus to the ends of the earth.
