[0:00] evening, this passage dealing with the resurrection of Christ or with the way that his tomb was found no longer containing his body that had been buried there shortly before.
[0:16] We're still continuing in our study of Peter's life, but we're jumping ahead somewhat, just because we associate this particular Lord's Day with the resurrection, and therefore we're looking at this in relation to that.
[0:32] But although it's jumping ahead, somewhat it's still following the life of Simon Peter, especially as you have it in the Gospels. Now it's interesting that all four Gospels speak of this taking place on the first day of the week.
[0:50] You might expect that they would say, or that one of them at least would say, the third day after he was dead, after he was buried, after he died. But the four of them actually say, on the first day of the week.
[1:04] And it would appear, while we don't want to press that point too much, but theologically it seems that what they're really saying collectively is that this really, for them, was the marking of a very special moment, and indeed of something entirely new happening, a new phase, if you like, not only in the experience and life of the Lord, but also a new phase in the history of the world, and indeed a new phase or chapter in the history of the church.
[1:33] And a new phase, you might say too, in God's scheme or plan of salvation. Because the resurrection of Jesus is absolutely foundational to the Christian faith, but not only is it so, it marks a particular point in Christ's own work of salvation, and a particular point in the history of his church, where this entirely new chapter begins, following on from the resurrection of Christ.
[2:06] Everything from now on, while of course still taking account of the death of Jesus, but everything from now on is going to be colored by and affected by the resurrection as it has actually taken place.
[2:21] And everything you find written in regard to what happened after the resurrection of Jesus will in some way or other, in the gospel writers, in the epistles of Paul and of Peter himself, will always have something in them that shows us the tremendous effect of realizing that Christ was risen from the dead.
[2:45] And it's that point in Peter's experience that we're really coming to this evening, jumping ahead somewhat from where we had a previous study. This is the point of realization for Peter and for the beloved disciple.
[2:59] We take him, as traditionally the case, to be John. And here they are coming to the tomb, here, and having been told by Mary Magdalene that the stone had been taken away, and Peter and the other disciple ran to the tomb.
[3:15] And it's interesting, as we'll see the details that are actually given us here, very specifically and very deliberately, giving us these details for our benefit. It's the time of realization on the part of these two disciples that actually Jesus is not dead.
[3:33] He has indeed risen from the dead, and what they saw in this tomb, what they actually came to see for themselves, was a very convincing evidence that Christ was indeed risen from the dead.
[3:48] Before we come to that compelling evidence in the tomb, let's look firstly at something more briefly, but still an interesting point. Because you find here the companionship of John along with Peter.
[4:03] Peter has the companionship of John as he comes to this moment in his own experience. And that is both interesting and somewhat significant. We read in Luke's Gospel in chapter 22 that after Peter had denied the Lord three times the way that he did, grievously wronging the Lord in denying him these three times, we read in chapter 22 that the Lord turned and looked upon Peter and that he went out and wept bitterly.
[4:36] He remembered the words of Jesus that the cockerel would crow three times in relation to his denial. And he went out and he wept bitterly.
[4:52] It really grieved him and hurt him that he had done this despite the Lord forewarning him. And then he disappears.
[5:02] And we don't know where he was and we don't know anything about him until he appears here on the morning of the resurrection, the day of the resurrection, with John. And we are left with questions, obviously, that we cannot answer definitively or in any way certainly, but we can ask the question, did Peter go and find John to be with him?
[5:26] Did John go and find Peter? Peter? Was it John who went to look for this fallen disciple so that he wouldn't be left on his own? Was it Peter who found the companionship of John to be a companionship that he could trust at this time, that he could find some help from knowing what he had done and being grieved in his heart about it?
[5:49] It doesn't really matter which of these questions you ask and what answer you gave. Whether it was Peter who went to where John was and found John, or whether John specifically went out to find Peter, the fact that they are here together is important.
[6:02] In other words, it tells you that John had not shunned this fallen disciple. John had not said about this Peter, I don't want anything more to do with him. He has grieved the Lord.
[6:13] He has grieved us disciples. He has fallen. He has actually done something that Jesus predicted and Jesus warned him against, and yet this is what he did. John is not like that.
[6:25] John is here with Peter. John didn't abandon him. John didn't fail him in his support.
[6:38] John is here a companion. Before Jesus restored Peter, before Peter actually met with the risen Jesus himself, John is here alongside of him, in companionship with him, helping him, supporting him, coming to the tomb alongside him.
[7:02] And of course that point is not lost on ourselves. We have to look out for the fallen. We have to be careful ourselves that we don't fall.
[7:14] We have to guard our own lives. We have to pray for grace for that. But we have to look out for the fallen. We have to reach out to the fallen. We have not just to pray for them, we have to be companions for them.
[7:28] We have to be a John as he was to Peter. As far as possible for us, whatever people have in terms of failure, or lapsing from their profession, or having gone away from the ways of the Lord, it's our business to actually look out for them, and reach out to them, be companions to them, be in support of them.
[7:46] Remember how another disciple, James, puts this in his letter, the letter of James, chapter 5, where you again find so much that these men remembered of the teaching of Christ and of experience of Christ.
[8:04] This is what he said as he finishes the letter, chapter 5, the very closing verses of the letter of James. My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wanderings will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.
[8:27] That, of course, doesn't mean that we forgive people's sins the way God does, nor do we save people in the sense in which God saves them. What this is saying is we save them in the sense of bringing them back from their wanderings into the ways of life, back to the gospel, back to their relationship with God.
[8:46] And it's interesting how James puts it, my brothers, if anyone wanders from the truth, doesn't matter who it is, anyone, let someone bring him back.
[9:00] In other words, what he's really saying is he's not defining who exactly, he's leaving it open, anyone who wanders from the truth. And it's our responsibility, what's the way he puts it, let someone do it.
[9:13] Don't leave it to somebody else, in other words. Look at John alongside of Peter. Look at Peter in the companionship of John as they come together to experience the resurrection of Christ as they find the evidence for it in this tomb.
[9:32] That's the first point we could widen out on that but I want to come especially to the main part of our study this evening, the compelling evidence in the tomb. Now notice the description, the description first of all, that John has given us as they came to the tomb.
[9:50] We find the description that one outran the other. John obviously ran more quickly than Peter and yet nevertheless, John didn't go into the tomb but Peter being Peter, he just came eventually whenever it was after John had reached here, comes Peter.
[10:07] What does he do? He goes straight in there. And he goes straight in there and John then follows him. So in actual fact, Peter takes the readership here in going into the sepulchre. Sepulchre, of course, were cut into the rock and you could actually go into them like a small cave and there was no other occupant of this tomb.
[10:25] We know that from elsewhere and the previous chapter tells us. A new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. So the arrangement there is very important.
[10:35] The arrangement of the clothes especially. This is what Peter saw as indeed the other disciple a moment afterwards. He saw the linen cloths lying there and the face cloth which had been on Jesus' head not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself.
[10:53] Now folded up is probably not the best translation. It's not exactly easy to translate it but what the word literally means is in a place by itself, yes, but it means not so much folded up but in a round circular shape.
[11:12] Because if it had been folded up, just neatly folded up like you would with a small piece of cloth, people could come in and say, well, wish the evidence that he was risen from the dead.
[11:24] Somebody else could have done this. Somebody could have taken his body away and then just folded up this cloth that was round his head very neatly and placed it there separate from the other clothes.
[11:35] That's not what it's saying to us. What it's saying to us is something that gave them a definite view of the resurrection, that it was real. In other words, the clothes were just as they had been on Christ's dead body.
[11:49] And as Christ rose from the dead, he rose out from, we can't really say in any particularly detailed way, but he rose out from death and therefore he rose out from the grave clothes, leaving them behind exactly as they had been on his body.
[12:11] In other words, the clothes having been on his dead corpse collapsed downwards when he rose out from them bodily and that would have meant that the cloth round his head was left in a circular way, shape, just as it had been on his body when his body had lain there.
[12:31] Because that's really what the compelling evidence was. He left those clothes behind as they had been on his body and the very shape of the clothes, including the head, the scarf, or the face cloth was itself compelling evidence for these disciples as they went in.
[12:49] They could conclude from what they saw what was before their eyes, nothing else could have done this, nothing else could have left the clothes like that, but an actual rising from the dead on the part of this Jesus.
[13:04] That's what they saw. That's what convinced them that he actually had risen physically from the dead. The contrast with that is really quite telling in the same Gospel of John back in chapter 11 where you find an account there, as you know, of the raising of Lazarus by Jesus.
[13:23] Lazarus brought back from the dead. And if you turn back briefly with me to chapter 11 and verse 44 where Jesus in verse 43 says with a loud voice, he said, Lazarus come out.
[13:37] Remember, Lazarus was bound with the same kind of grave clothes that Jesus would have had around his body. And when Jesus came to the tomb of Lazarus, he cried out with a loud voice, and that's important, a voice of authority, Lazarus come out.
[13:54] And then you read, the man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth.
[14:06] Jesus said to them, unbind him and let him go. He hadn't risen out of, as in resurrection, out of these clothes the way Jesus did. He had come back from the dead, but the clothes of death were still around him.
[14:20] He had to be given help to have these clothes removed so that he could put on his everyday clothes. That's the contrast very deliberately in John's Gospel with what you find of Jesus.
[14:33] He left the clothes there as compelling evidence that nobody had actually taken his body. He had risen out of them and left them behind.
[14:46] Now that means, from that, we have two important facts. two important facts. First of all, this is a foundational fact.
[14:59] The resurrection of Jesus, as there was compelling evidence for it here, came to be for these disciples, and especially as they came to write about it in their writings.
[15:09] It's a foundational fact for them. Foundational to salvation. Foundational to God's scheme of salvation. Foundational to the Gospel. foundational to your own personal salvation and mine.
[15:23] Our faith is based on facts. Let nobody actually dupe you in regard to this. You come across the view very frequently these days that faith is not really applicable in testing facts.
[15:39] You have to have some experimentation or some method that fits in with scientific processes in order to put something to the test and then conclude afterwards whether indeed it is the case or not about this, whatever it is you're testing.
[15:57] The Bible tells us that the faith that God gives to his people is as real to them as the breath in their bodies. And that the Jesus that they see spiritually through that faith, the Jesus that they're aware of in their lives, the Jesus that they pray to, the Jesus that they have communion with, the Jesus that they speak with daily, he is as real to them as their own bodies are.
[16:24] And the resurrection is verified, proven to be true in the faith of God's people.
[16:37] And just because people say, well, faith is not really appropriate, you have to leave that out of the calculation, out of the equation. Well, that's their opinion. But not to us.
[16:49] Not to someone who has faith in Christ. You can't actually say to that person, well, you know, your faith isn't really something of substance after all. It's not like a scientific experiment.
[17:01] No, it's better than that. It's a creation of God. It's something that God himself has placed in our hearts so that those things that we cannot see with our eyes and that are described for us in the word, the infallible, dependable word of God, are as real to you as the nose in your face.
[17:19] Our faith is based on facts and especially facts like these. The risen Christ, Christ risen from the dead, the resurrection of Christ.
[17:29] They went into this tomb and when John himself went in, as you see in verse 8, he saw and believed. You see, that's important. He saw and believed.
[17:39] What he saw convinced him. What he saw led to him believing that this indeed had taken place. It didn't take place without their seeing, but their seeing is by no means the limitation of their resources at this time.
[17:56] They believed. And so do you believe. You believe in Christ tonight. Believe that he's risen from the dead. Not because you've seen it happening with your own eyes, but because you have evidence in the word of God and in your own heart that this Jesus lives and lives as your Savior.
[18:18] It's a foundational fact. You see, it says here, he also went in and saw and believed, for as yet they did not understand the scripture that he must rise from the dead.
[18:29] At this point, until this point, not even these disciples understood the scripture. And that seems to be really John saying to us the whole Old Testament evidence.
[18:41] It's in all sorts of different places in the Old Testament. Some of it not very clear, but scattered through the pages of the Old Testament, you find different ways in which God pointed ahead to resurrection life.
[18:54] The raising of Lazarus, the end of Psalm 16, various things like that, but they're all in different places and they were remaining like that in different places scattered throughout the Old Testament until this one event took place.
[19:09] In other words, you can say the cumulative evidence of the Old Testament, the cumulative evidence, the gathered evidence of all of these texts gathered together, all these passages gathered together, that cumulative evidence actually comes to be proved to be true in this one singular event of Christ's resurrection.
[19:34] As yet, they did not believe the scripture, but they do now. they have the proof of it now as never before in the resurrection of Jesus himself.
[19:47] And that's why Peter, very interestingly, it's Peter in his first letter and in the very first chapter and verses 3 to 4, right near the beginning of his wonderful epistle.
[19:59] Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has begotten us again to a living hope by the resurrection of Christ from the dead.
[20:17] In other words, he's saying, we came to the tomb expecting to find his body, but he created in us, he begat us to a living hope.
[20:29] How? By the resurrection of Christ. When we saw what was in that tomb, we understood then that he was indeed risen from the dead and it revived our hope and our faith, which had really come to flag thinking that he was dead, the hope of Israel.
[20:49] It's a foundational fact. And wherever you find any theologian, minister, Christian, professing Christian, saying, I don't believe that Christ actually rose from the dead, that man has disqualified or that woman has disqualified themselves from the claim that they are Christians.
[21:18] Because Christianity is based on facts and this is the greatest or one of the greatest the resurrection of Christ from the dead. So that's the first thing.
[21:28] It's a foundational fact. Let me move on and say secondly, it's a comforting fact. Not just foundational to our hopes and foundational to our Christianity, it's also a comforting fact because this is not quite an empty tomb, is it?
[21:45] If they had come to this tomb and there'd be nothing in it, well, that would have been a very, very different experience. And while we actually read about and sometimes speak about and say the words the empty tomb in regard to the resurrection, it's not quite accurate because it wasn't actually empty, thankfully.
[22:04] It had these grave clothes in it. And Jesus had left the grave clothes behind because they were no longer appropriate to his risen body. He was now beyond death.
[22:17] He was now having left death behind him. Death no longer had a part in his experience. He had done that. He had accomplished that.
[22:27] It was over. It was finished. He had conquered it. He was risen from the dead. And the grave clothes belong to the grave. That's where they stay. They are no longer relevant to the risen Christ, to Jesus, now victor over death.
[22:43] So the clothes are behind not only as evidence of his resurrection, but as no longer relevant now that death is behind.
[22:56] That is a comforting fact in three ways. So here we are. There are two facts, a foundational fact and a comforting fact. And you divide, we're dividing this comforting fact, the clothes that were left there, the reason they were left there into three points finally in conclusion.
[23:16] It's a comforting fact for our present needs. When you go through the remaining part of this chapter and into chapter 21 of John, you'll find very, very wonderfully the way the risen Jesus comes to deal with certain individuals, individuals that are characterized at the time that Jesus meets with them by certain things in their experience.
[23:48] Let me just point out what I mean by that. First of all, take Jesus dealing with grief. There's Mary. Mary standing, weeping outside the tomb, seeing the angels.
[24:03] They said to her woman, why are you weeping? Because, she said, they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him. They have taken away my Lord's body, and I do not know where he now is, and I have come looking for him, and he is not here.
[24:17] And then she meets Jesus. I mean, suppose he was first to be the gardener, and then Jesus just said one word to her, her own name on his lips. That was such a powerful, emotional word.
[24:29] She recognized him there on the basis of how he said it and what he said. Mary. She turned around and said, my master, Rabboni. There is Jesus meeting with grief.
[24:43] How does our grief need to be dealt with? Well, it's not enough to say by Jesus. You have to say by the risen Jesus.
[24:54] And it's the risen Christ, thankfully, that comes to meet with us and our grief. Not just any Jesus, not the dead Jesus, but the risen Christ, the Christ who stands over death victorious.
[25:07] That's the Jesus that you and I need for our grief. That's the Jesus who alone can actually meet our grief and deal with our grief. And even speak our name to us, as it were, in our times of grief.
[25:23] And then you move ahead to the disciples gathered in the room for fear of the Jews. The room that's locked. The next passage, beginning, verse 19. Then Jesus came and stood amongst them.
[25:35] Here they are, characterized by fear. Fear of what's around them. Fear of leaving that room. Fear of being persecuted. Fear of being put to death, even. And Jesus comes in.
[25:46] And what does he say? Peace be unto you. You're afraid tonight of something or other. Something in your own life. Something in the life of a loved one.
[25:58] Something concerns you. Something fills your soul with sometimes agony. Maybe it's less than that. Still, you have a fear there.
[26:12] What is it can deal properly and adequately with that fear? The risen Christ. You bring your fear to him. You bring your fear to this Jesus who stands over death and says, peace be unto you.
[26:25] The peace that I have died and risen to bring to you. And then thirdly, you're moving ahead very briefly. All of these deserve more study in themselves.
[26:36] Then you come to doubt as that is seen in Thomas. He didn't believe when his fellow disciples said that they had seen the Lord. And eight days later, Jesus rearranged the scene for him.
[26:48] It's interesting that that's what's happening. Jesus is actually doing this. He's in charge of the whole situation. And then he says, having come again through with the doors being locked, he stood and he then pinpointed Thomas and made his way to him exactly.
[27:02] And he said, Thomas, put your finger here and see my hands and put out your hand and place it in my side. Do not believe. Do not disbelieve. Don't go on disbelieving, but believe.
[27:15] What's Thomas' reaction? My Lord and my God. He's no longer doubting Thomas, is he? He's confessing Thomas. What a confession it is.
[27:27] There's no other like it in the Bible. Jesus in one breath described as my Lord and my God. Where do you take your doubts? Where do you take your doubts when Satan instills doubt in your heart about Jesus himself, about the resurrection, about his word, doubt about yourself, doubt about your faith, doubt about your obedience, doubt about this and that.
[27:50] Where do you take your doubts? You take them to the risen Christ. You take them to this Jesus. You set them out in his presence. You say, Lord, I have these doubts and I need your help with them.
[28:05] And you wait and he speaks to you through your word, through his word, to your soul. So he deals with grief in Mary. He deals with fear in the disciples.
[28:16] He deals with doubt in Thomas. You move ahead to chapter 21 where he deals with what you might call is a precursor to or a symbol of evangelism where the disciples again are fishing.
[28:29] They go out, they catch nothing. It's reminiscent of Luke chapter 7. But this is Jesus no longer, not now in the boat with them as he was then. Where is he now? He's standing at a distance on the shore.
[28:43] And he speaks to them, Have you caught any fish? They answered, No. And he said, Well, cast the net on the right side of the boat you will find some.
[28:57] They had spent the whole night just like in Luke 15, sorry, in Luke chapter 5. They'd caught nothing. And here is Jesus repeating that same demonstration of power on his part except this time he's doing it from a distance.
[29:17] He's doing it from the perspective of him being the risen Jesus. When he was with them in the boat he was Christ pre-death, before his death, before his resurrection. Yes, he showed his power there but what he's teaching them now is, Look, I'm not going to go away just because I'm not with you physically.
[29:34] I'm going to deal with your lack of power in the way that I know as the risen Jesus can. And so he demonstrates for them this is what you're going to have. This is what's going to follow you when you cast out the gospel net and you realize you don't have the power to actually bring in disciples into the church.
[29:57] My power will achieve it for you. From the distant shore you might say of heaven. Christ is assuring us tonight as a congregation when you go out to evangelize, when you reach out to people, when you spread the gospel in your communities, you're dealing with the gospel of the risen Christ.
[30:20] You have with you a power that overcame the grave. A power that burst the bands of death. Who's going to stand against that?
[30:31] Do we have confidence in that? Do we forget that's the Jesus we're serving? Do we forget that's the substance of the gospel? That it's nothing less than this glorious, powerful, risen Christ.
[30:51] And of course, our present needs extend beyond that. But these are just samples and they're there right in these passages themselves. So it's a comforting fact for our present needs. Secondly, it's a comforting fact for our relation to death.
[31:06] Yes, we have to give a thought to death. We mustn't just go on in life without thinking about it for ourselves. And even though we're familiar with it in the death of others that we have seen coming to the end of their course in this life, for me and for you it's important that we think, where am I in relation to my death?
[31:27] what's it going to be for me when that moment comes? And it could come to us at any stage of our lives, young or old. Well, faith goes into this sepulcher.
[31:43] And faith sees spiritually in this sepulcher as described in this word of God, the very same thing that these disciples saw with their eyes physically. unless you look ahead to death, your death, unless you seek to prepare for death and think about death, unless you see these clothes, you say, well, I don't need to fear because somebody else has been here before me.
[32:10] And not just anybody, but this Jesus. This Christ who conquered death for me. He's been there before.
[32:21] His body was here. He knows what it's like to have his body laid in the tomb. So you follow the words of David in Psalm 23.
[32:34] Even though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. The shepherd himself, the one who died and rose again in Jesus Christ, the shepherd as he is.
[32:51] he doesn't just leave us on the very border of death and say, well, I've come this far with you, the rest is up to you. No, he comes and says, I'm going with you.
[33:05] I'm not going to leave you. My presence will go with you even into death and out the other side. it's a comforting fact for our relation to death as well.
[33:17] Thirdly, it's a comforting fact for our own resurrection because his resurrection guarantees the resurrection of those who have come to trust in them and place their lives in his hand.
[33:32] Those who live by faith in them, their resurrection is guaranteed. And when you go to the likes of Revelation 7 9, following on from that, you can see the description there where John again was given this great vision and heard this question and he came to have this question put to him.
[33:53] You remember how it goes when he saw that vision of all these this great multitude clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands and crying with a loud voice, salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb and so on.
[34:12] In other words, they don't have the covering that they had in this life. They've left that behind. It's no longer relevant. Death is behind them. They're clothed in white robes.
[34:23] I know that Revelation is symbolic in many ways. It represents things by giving us certain imagery, but nevertheless, this is the fact. Everything as it is in this world is left behind.
[34:37] The limitations of this life, they're left behind, which is why chapter 7 of Revelation goes on to say, death shall be no more. Sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
[34:49] God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. Everything that you associate with the grave, with death, with the effects of sin, it's no longer applicable to them.
[35:04] and all of that is guaranteed by the Lamb who died and rose again. And that's why Paul can say in this letter to the Philippians, our place of citizenship, it's not in this world, having described people who are just living for this world.
[35:27] But our citizenship is in heaven, from where we expect eagerly, a Savior, this Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform this body of our humiliation, this present body that we have, who will transform it so that it may conform to his own glorious body.
[35:51] What a wonderful prospect. As you look into the sepulcher of Jesus, where his body was and is no longer there, where you see the grave clothes having been left behind, and death left behind, and everything to do with death and sorrow left behind.
[36:08] That's the guarantee, that that's what awaits God's people. Nothing less than that, where the Lamb himself will feed them, will pastor them, for all eternity.
[36:25] And John, very similarly in his first epistle, remember there he says in chapter 3, the wonder of the Father's love, what kind of love, see, behold, the Father has given to us that we should be called children of God.
[36:40] Beloved, now we are God's children, but what we will be has not yet appeared. But we know that when, and we prefer the translation if we could say, we know that when it does appear, in other words, what we shall be in eternity, in glory with God, it has not yet appeared, it has not yet come to be obviously revealed to us.
[37:05] How can it be? It has not yet happened. But we know that when it will appear, we shall be like him. In other words, we don't have to ask the question, what will we be like then when this appears, what we shall be when it appears, because when it appears, when Christ comes, we shall be like him.
[37:27] For we shall see him as he is, and we shall be like him. You look into that sepulcher tonight, and gives you the courage of hope, the testimony of faith, that here is a comforting fact for your present needs, for your own relation to death, and for our resurrection, if we die believing in Christ.
[38:05] You may have seen programs recently, or in not too distant past, where on the BBC there were virtual reality maps, Alexander Armstrong was heading up the program, and they went through wonderful technology used to draw up some virtual reality maps of Venice, and Florence, and another couple of Italian cities, I can't remember where it was, but what they did was they went about with this wonderful technology, and mapped in a virtual way, even underneath the cities, and so that at the end of it, you were actually taken in a virtual reality on your own screen, down into various parts of these cities, and into the wonderful palaces, and that you could come up by magic almost above these buildings and look beyond it, and see the whole of Venice stretching out before you in virtual reality, just as it was, in every detail, exactly as had been mapped out by that technology using what was called
[39:13] Leica Geosystems Mobile Reality Capture Technology. I don't know anything about that, but it was an absolutely staggering and wonderful thing to look at.
[39:25] You were actually in virtual reality in those places, and you know Scripture, in an even more wonderful way, is like that for us spiritually.
[39:38] For the past 30 minutes or 40 minutes, we have been inside Christ's sepulchre. reality. That's where we've been.
[39:51] We've been viewing its contents. We've been looking around, just as if we had been with John and Peter on that very occasion, because Scripture describes it in such detail.
[40:02] It's a virtual reality experience for you. but what's your reaction? What are you taking from that tonight?
[40:16] Are you going to be like verse 8? When they saw, he believed. The greatest sign of all.
[40:29] John, you remember, and I am going to finish with this, but it's an important point. John speaks about the miracles of Christ as signs, and as he does so, he describes various things in relation to them.
[40:45] But undoubtedly, the greatest sign or miracle for John is the resurrection of Jesus. And it's for good reason that he finishes chapter 20 in these words.
[40:57] Now, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written. Why? Why were we in Christ's sepulcher tonight?
[41:10] Why did we have a virtual reality in a spiritual way experience? So that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in his name.
[41:27] May it be so for you and for me. Let's pray. Lord, our God, help us to be thankful for the victory that you have achieved over death, for the way that you stand tonight before us as the great conqueror.
[41:46] Help us to trust in you, to trust ourselves to you. Help us to know that victory being replicated in our own experience, enabling us too to conquer sin and death in ourselves.
[42:02] Grant, Lord, we pray that you'd bless this message to us from your word, and we pray that it may continue to comfort our hearts knowing that you are indeed our Savior, risen from the dead.
[42:16] Hear us, we pray, for your glory's sake. Amen. Let's conclude our service now this evening singing in Psalm 16, Psalm 16, verses 8-11, Before me still the Lord I set, said that it is so that he doth ever stand at my right hand, I shall not moved be.
[42:44] Because of this my heart is glad, and joy shall be expressed even by my glory, and my flesh and confidence shall rest. So on through to the end of the Psalm.
[42:54] Psalm 16, page 216, verse 8, Before me still the Lord I set. Amen. pour me down, the Lord I say, Should it is so that He Doth ever stand at my right hand Doth ever stand at my right hand I shall not move with Thee Because of this my heart is glad And joy shall be expressed
[43:58] In Thy my glory and my flesh In confidence shall rest Because my soul in great to dwell Shall not be left by Thee Nor wilt Thou give Thy glory one Nor wilt Thou give Thy glory one For a option to see
[45:03] Thy will be shown The path of life Of joy's evidence will store Before Thy face At Thy right hand Before Thy face At Thy right hand Are pleasures evermore I'll go to the main door after the benediction.
[45:50] Lord, we ask that your blessing will follow all that we have sought to do in your name this evening. We pray your blessing on the fellowship that takes place in the hall in relation to the reunion.
[46:03] And we ask that your blessing will grace their gathering and that you would give them together to know your presence. And now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you now and always.
[46:19] Amen.