This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Lewis
Harold, assistant pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland
County in Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Lewis as he
continues teaching through God's Word.
And then in verse 5 he says what the Angel answered and said to
the women, do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who
was crucified. And then verse 6 is probably my
favorite verse. The Angel said he is not here,
for he is risen as he said. Don't forget that part, as he
said. As he said, this is an important
phrase in the Bible for so many of us.
As we say doesn't mean much. Our yes isn't yes and our no
isn't no. We flip flop a lot with our
words and commitments. The Bible provides plenty of
details for things that were predicted to happen, and the
death and resurrection of Jesus is the most pivotal in all of
history. But as he said, it's a phrase
that confirms the words spoken by the prophets.
Today, you'll learn from Pastor Lewis just how much you can
trust in the Word of God. Now here's Pastor Lewis in the
Gospel of Matthew chapter 28 with today's edition of Living
Waters of Grace. I would ask if you would turn in
your bodies please to the book of Matthew and we're going to
look at the 28th chapter there beginning at verse one.
One of the reasons why we have decided to play this particular
rap song that Case and his wrote is because it kind of depicts
exactly what it was that my life was about before I knew Christ
and, and how I celebrated Easter.
And I want to say this, and I'm going to say this right at the
top. Many people call it Easter.
Many people call it Resurrection day.
We're not more holy. People call it one or the other.
The one who calls it resurrection Day is no more holy
or righteous than the one who calls it Easter.
OK, that's not the point. The point is, where's the heart?
Where's the heart if your heart prioritizes what happened that
day, The fact that our Lord and Savior walked out of that tomb
and we don't know what He walked.
Maybe He levitated out of it. I don't know.
I wasn't there. But we do know that He did rise
Sunday morning. And because He lives, we live.
That's the important thing about the resurrection.
It's not whether you call it Easter or whether you call it
Resurrection Day. I just want to make that clear
right from the top. So when someone says Happy
Easter to me and I say happy Resurrection Day back, I'm not
trying to be more righteous than you and I'm not saying that
you're more righteous than me. But it's the heart behind the
reason why we celebrate that makes this day so special.
That's what separates us from the world.
And as long as we have that in mind, doesn't matter what we
call it, long as we know that this is the day that we
commemorate and celebrate the day that our Lord and Savior was
risen, just as he said. Amen.
So, yeah, Well, but, but for many years, that was me.
I, I, I celebrated Easter because of what it gave me,
because of what this day gave me.
See, when I was young, and maybe many of you can relate to it,
but when I was young, we celebrated Easter.
And that meant a new suit, a new pair of shoes and lots of candy.
And that was every year. That was every year I could look
forward to getting a new suit. Every year.
My mom would give me a new suit every year because Easter had to
go to church and have on an Easter suit and everybody else
had on one. So we went to church and we were
looking at what everybody else was wearing and everybody's
suits and everybody's shoes. Oh more, that looks nice.
That looks nice. How much can I was running
around trying to get all the Reese's peanut butter cups I can
find and everybody's baskets. But that's what it meant to me.
That's what it meant to me. But now being in Christ Jesus,
it means so much more. And that's what we want to talk
about this morning. You see the resurrection of
Jesus Christ. It's a historical as well as a
fulfilled prophecy. It provides a lot of things for
us. First of all, it provides the
fact that it is fulfilled. It does fulfill the Old
Testament prophecy and the proof that Jesus Christ is the
Messiah. Secondly, it's hope for our own
resurrection one day. Just to look at a couple verses
concerning that, I'd like to look at Romans first of all,
chapter 6 and yeah, chapter 6 and verses 8 and 9, and I'll
just read it just basically says now we have died with Christ, we
believe that we shall also live with him knowing that Christ,
having been raised from the dead, dies no more.
Second Corinthians chapter 4 and verse 14 says, knowing that he
who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise up, raise us up
with Jesus and will present us with you.
And then in first Peter gives us another encouragement.
First Peter chapter 1 and verse 3 says blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant
mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
So his resurrection is hope for us that we too will be
resurrected one day. But I also want to mention that
it wasn't like when he resurrected.
It wasn't like him just coming just being made alive again.
See back in in the Old Testament, there's different
times when we see that people were made alive.
Elijah, he brought the woman's son who had died, and she, you
know, he raised him from the dead.
Jesus even rose Lazarus from the dead, but they died again.
If they weren't resurrected, they were raised from the dead.
Jesus was resurrected. He was resurrected to new life.
His body was not the same. Now he's able to go through and
we'll get to that in a minute, but he's able to walk through
walls and appear. He was different because the
body that went in is not the same body that goes out.
We're we're, we may go in the ground with dishonor, but we're
raised in glory. We may go in the ground, a
natural body, but we're raised a spiritual body.
We may go in the ground, a weak body, but we're raised in power.
So it's not just him coming alive again.
He was resurrected and makes such a big difference.
So now let's go back to our let's go to our story.
So being that we have these two facts that it fulfills Old
Testament prophecy and and also the fact that it's hoped for our
own resurrection. The one thing that's important
that we look at now is, well, how should we live in light of
the resurrection? How does that impact the way we
live? Does it impact our life or is it
just something we look at? So it happened and we just keep
going. No, it has an impact on our
life. It has an impact on the how we
live going forward. We'll get into that.
But looking at verse chapter 28, starting at verse one, and I'll
just read down to verse 3 and then we'll go back and make
calm. He says this now after the 7th,
as the first day of the week began to dawn.
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb, and
behold, there was a great earthquake, for an Angel of the
Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone
from the door and sat on it. Just stop there for a second.
That's a mouthful. So we see that on Sunday
morning, which is the early Sunday morning, which is when
the two women decided that it was time for them to go when
they brought spices with them. They brought spices because they
were going to prepare the body. They were going to anoint the
body of Jesus. So they brought they came with
spices and they really expected to see a body there.
You know, it wasn't like they came thinking that it would be,
that it would not be there. They expected to see that body
there. So they brought these spices and
they obviously couldn't do it on the Sabbath, which was the day
before this, which was a Saturday.
They couldn't do it on the Sabbath.
So they waited until dawn of the Sunday morning, which is early
Sunday morning. But before they got there, the
Bible tells us that there was something epic that it happened
before they got there. Now, we don't know if it
happened late Saturday night or if it happened early Sunday
morning before they actually got there.
But what we know is something epic happened.
And when they got there, all they saw is that the door to the
tomb, the OR the stone that was in front of the tomb was
removed. That's all they saw.
They were wondering how are they going to remove that big stone
before they got there. That was a conversation they
were having and thinking, how are we going to remove this big
stone? We're not talking when it says a
stone. We're not talking about a
Pebble, we're talking about a boulder that they use to cover
and secure this tomb. So they're wondering, you know,
Mary and the other Mary and the other women that are with them,
how are we going to move this tomb?
Men can hardly move it. How are we going to do it?
But before they got there, God had already took care of that.
And he says it was a great earthquake.
And isn't amazing that earthquakes always somehow
accompany great things that happen in the Word of God?
When he was crucified, the Bible says there was a earthquake when
he was crucified. And the Bible says there was an
earthquake here at the resurrection.
So there was a great earthquake and the Angel of the Lord had
descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone from
the door and sat on it. So this Angel came down from
heaven. And I don't believe that the
Angel got behind his boulder and pushed it.
I believe all he did was just part of him waved his hand or
something and, and the boater just moved.
I mean, we saw on the Old Testament that Moses, all he did
was put up his arms and he, he raised the staff that was in his
hand and the whole Red Sea divided.
So I can't imagine these angels having to put forth any labor to
move this stone. But the interesting thing is
what happens here in verse in verse 4.
Let's look at verse three first. He says His countenance was like
lightning. This is just the description of
the Angel. His countenance was like
lightning and His clothes as white as snow.
If you remember in the Transfiguration when they looked
at Christ, his face glowed. It was like white, the glory of
the Lord is so bright they could hardly look at him and he
appeared to have on white garments.
It also says that the same is in Revelation when John the Apostle
John first saw Jesus in Revelations and and it said that
he had on a white garment the purity of holiness, the purity
of godliness is what these things represent.
And this Angel was representing the purity and it says like
lightning. So he was also representing the
power of God. And in verse 4 says in the and
the guards shook for fear of him and became like dead men.
Now these are guard. Now we don't know exactly how
many of these guards were there guarding this tomb.
We don't know exactly. The Bible doesn't say
specifically how many was there. The speculation is that there
were probably at least 4 because when they say of guard, it
represents at least 4, but it could be anywhere from four men
to about 16 men in a single guard.
So it wasn't clear exactly how many of these men the these
soldiers were there guarding this tomb.
But what we do know, and we know this from back in chapter 27,
and it says this in chapter 27, verse 64, starting verse 62, it
says on the next day, this is the next day after the
crucifixion which followed the day of preparation.
The chief priests and Pharisees gathered together to pilot,
saying, Sir, we remember while he was still alive, how the
deceiver said, after three days I will rise.
Therefore command that the tomb be made secure until the 3rd
day, lest his disciples come by night and steal him away and say
to the people, He has risen from the dead.
So the last deception will be worse than the first 65 pilots
said to them, You have a guard, go go your way and make it as
secure as you know. So they went and made the tomb
secure, sealing the stone and setting the guard.
So these guards that the Pharisees were actually they had
access to were actually Roman soldiers.
Roman soldiers. I'm saying this for a reason,
because if you're talking about here, that these men over here
in verse 28, verse 4 where it says and the guards shook for
fear of him and became like dead men.
We're not talking about men who were like me, who won't even,
who won't even face a bear in the woods or won't even go
camping because of what I might see in the woods.
We're not talking about men like that.
We're talking about soldiers. We're talking about men who are
proven to be gladiators, men who will fight.
They they are, are strong men. They are proven valor men, men
who will go to battle. And at that particular time,
Rome was probably the best trained army in the world.
But when these men saw that Angel, the sight of that must
have been so terrifying to them that the Bible said they shook,
They shook. In fact, they were so afraid
that they became like dead men. And they became like dead men
because of the fear, because of the fear that they experienced.
Now this now this dead doesn't mean that they actually were
dead. Obviously they weren't dead
dead, but they were unconscious. And when you look at what it
means, like by dead men they're talking about, they were
incapacitated by overwhelming fear.
They were rendered helpless, rendered weak because of the
power, the display of power that they saw in God.
I can't imagine seeing that power and how would it impact us
standing in the power in the presence of God.
It's a fear that causes fainting and his Angel and these men did
faint in the presence of these of this Angel.
Now it also talked about that as well with Jesus when they went
to arrest him, when they asked who Jesus was and he says I am
Jesus. Bible says they felt like dead
man. They felt like dead man because
the power, the purity and the holiness of God is overwhelming.
It's overwhelming. And then in verse 5, he says
what the Angel answered and said to the women, Do not be afraid,
for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.
And then verse 6 is probably my favorite verse.
The Angel said he is not here for he is risen as he said.
Don't forget that part, as he said.
That part is important. We know that throughout the
Gospels that there have been many times when Jesus predicted
when he's speaking to his apostles and his disciples, when
he would tell the fact that he would go and he's going to be
betrayed. He's going to go to Jerusalem.
He's going to be betrayed, and he's going to suffer at the
hands of these wicked men. And that he's going to be
killed. Jesus.
Yeah, he's he's I'm going to be killed.
But on the third day, I'm going to rise again.
He said that to him a number of times, but that never really
sunk in for them. It never sunk into them, but he
said it so many times and he even said it to the Pharisees
when they talked about wanting to destroy Jesus.
Jesus said destroy this temple and I'll raise it up.
I'll raise it up in three days. Go ahead.
And they said they thinking he's talking physical.
So they said, wait a minute, it took 46 years to build a temple
and you are going to build it in three days.
But Jesus was talking about the temple of his own body.
He said, I will raise it up in three days.
So these angels, what they're saying here is epic.
It's so it's so important and it's so serious and it means so
much for us because it is as he said, as he said.
So if this wouldn't have been true, how could we have believed
anything else that he told us? So it was important that the
Angel specifically mentioned, as he said, if you have faith in
this, have faith in everything else that he said, boy, you got
a good, you got a bright future. It's going to be well for you
because he does what he says. Numbers tell us that God is.
He's not a man that he should lie.
If he says that he's going to do it, he's not a man that he
should lie. So then he talked about it.
He he goes even further than that.
He says he's not here. He is risen as he said, come
see, I actually have AI started wearing those.
I got a T-shirt that says come see.
I started to wear it, but he says come see.
So in other words, what he's saying is, look, I know you're
not going to just take my word for it, even though I'm an Angel
that that constantly stands before the Lord in heaven and
I've come down from heaven in order to do this feet.
But I'm not asking you to just take my word for that.
I want you to come see. So he, you know, he said, go see
and see the place where the Lord lie.
And then in verse 7 he says, and go, and go quickly and tell his
disciples that he is risen from the dead.
And indeed He is going before them into Galilee.
There you will see him. Behold, I have told you this
Angel, He, He's giving them an invitation now, an invitation to
come and validate what He just said.
So they go when they look in and they see, well, He's not there.
He's not there. I've never been to Israel.
I've never been to Jerusalem. I've never been to this tomb,
but I know many people who have my pastor have a Clark, you've
been to this tomb, correct? So and I know many people have
been there several times, several times.
So I want to ask a question because I know that when the
people that I asked when they were there at this tomb and they
said, well, you want to go over to Jerusalem, I said I don't
need to. You were there.
You said he wasn't in there. You said he wasn't there.
So I believe he wasn't there. The Bible says he wasn't there.
That's two witnesses. Pastor Clark, when you went to
Jerusalem, when you went to the tomb, when you looked in, was he
there? I have no reason to have to go.
My pastor said he wasn't there, He's not there, and indeed he is
going before you into Galilee. There you will see him.
Behold, I have told you. And he did.
He told him just that. Jesus told them on the last time
in the book of Matthew when he told him that he was going to be
killed and he was going to be buried and he was going to rise
again. He said, but I will go before
you in Galilee. If you go back to Matthew
chapter 26, which is a should be just a couple pages over and
verse 32 and I'm going to start reading here in verse 31.
Then Jesus said to them, all of you will be made to stumble
because of me this night. For it is written, I will strike
the shepherd, meaning that he was going to be stricken,
beaten, He's going to suffer and he's going to die, and the sheep
of the flock will be scattered. And that's exactly what they all
did when he was being beaten. They ran, they left them.
Even Peter who said that he wouldn't.
Verse 32 But after I have been raised, I will go before you to
Galilee. So just like the Angel said,
look just like he said, just like he told you, OK, he's going
to go before you into Galilee. So so far everything that Jesus
has said was going to happen is coming to be verse 8 and 9
Matthew do 10/2. He says so they went out quickly
from the tomb with fear and great joy and they ran to bring
his disciples word. So let's stop there for a
second. So they left with both fear and
joy. I I I can certainly understand
that and you just saw this Angel sitting on a the stone of this
tomb that it probably would have taken about 30 men plus a
machine to move of some type. But this Angel was there by
himself. But the other account actually
show that there were more than one Angel there.
We don't know exactly how many angels were there, but there
were more than one Angel. There was more than one Angel
there. Thanks for joining us today as
we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus here on Living Waters of
Grace. Pastor Lewis Harrell has been so
excited to share with us about the miracle of the resurrection
of Christ. The human race spent thousands
of years lost in sin before God sent His only Son, Jesus Christ,
to come be a perfect sacrifice for all mankind.
His blood is enough to atone for the sins of all mankind, and His
resurrection puts an end to death itself.
Our desire is to spread this good news of the Gospel to as
many people as possible, but we need your help to do so.
The first way you can help us is by sharing this program with a
friend. You can join us here on Grace FM
91.7 or they can TuneIn online at Grace Radio dot FM.
And as we continue to develop a new station that will reach many
more listeners, you can send financial gifts to Grace FMPO,
Box 716, Greensburg, PA 15601. If you're in Greensburg, we'd
also love to invite you to join us at Calvary Chapel
Westmoreland. We're located at 400 E
Pittsburgh St. Ste. 6B.
We meet on Sundays at 10:30 AM. If you're not able to visit us
in person, we encourage you to connect with us on the web at
calvarychapelonline.com. There you will find a link to
our Calvary Chapel Westmoreland mobile app or social media feeds
and the contact form so you can get connected with us or share a
prayer request with our team. We also live stream our services
every Sunday on our YouTube channel.
Well, we pray that you will be blessed as you go forth into
your week. Until next time, we'd like to
thank you for tuning into this special Easter edition of Living
Waters of Grace.