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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/brandon-doll/two-errors/
Let's go to the book of Matthew, please, tonight. Matthew, and we're going to begin at chapter 16. Matthew in chapter 16. We'll read together at verse number 21. From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples how that he must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.
Now chapter 26, please. We'll read together here at verse number 30. Verse 30. And when they had sung a hymn, he went out into the Mount of Olives. Then saith Jesus unto them, all ye shall be offended because of me this night, for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad.
But after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee. Now to chapter 27, verse 62. Now the next day, that followed the day of the preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate, saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, after three days I will rise again.
Command, therefore, that the sepulcher be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night and steal him away. And say unto the people, he is risen from the dead, so the last hour shall be worse than the first.
Pilate said unto them, you have a watch. Go your way. Make it as sure as you can. So they went and made the sepulcher sure, sealing the stone and setting a watch. And Lord will bless to us the reading of his precious word.
As you know, on this Saturday of the Easter weekend, the world now is celebrating the events of Easter and the events of the cross. And it started with the Holy Week and then Good Friday, which would have been last night when the Lord Jesus was pronounced dead after having been crucified, put to an open shame.
And now is the Sabbath day, the day of rest. And the Lord Jesus has been buried, he's been put in Joseph of Arimathea's new tomb. And there he is laying, wrapped in the linens, anointed with the fragrance and with the ointment, and he's laying in the tomb.
We don't think much about the Saturday of the Easter weekend. We focus on the cross, and we focus on the sufferings of the cross, and we focus of the death of Christ and the blood that was shed. And what is it all for anyway?
Why was it that this man, Jesus, went to the cross of Calvary? It was God's divine plan and how God has dealt with sin at the place of the cross. And the Lord Jesus, as we were reminded in the testimony, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world, is lifted up between heaven and earth.
And you'll remember that the darkness came at noon, and it covered the earth as the Savior is suffering upon the cross. And about three in the afternoon, he cries with a loud voice, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
And there he was, forsaken by his God. He had all the suffering that took place in the daylight hours, all of the suffering that took place in the dark hours. All of it was necessary for the forgiveness of sin.
All was necessary if your soul is ever going to be saved. All of it is necessary if you're going to be in God's heaven, but it doesn't stop there. The scriptures are fulfilled concerning Christ and his suffering and his death as the suffering Messiah.
No bone of him was broken. He said, I thirst to fulfill the scriptures, and he dismisses his spirit, and he says, Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit. He dies in power. He doesn't die from suffocation and from heat and from the wounds that he received.
He offered himself without spot to God. And now Joseph comes and he begs the body of the Lord Jesus. Nicodemus comes and they take him down from the cross. I would like to ask you just for a second, how would you have taken him down?
If you were there, how would you have taken the Lord Jesus down? If you would have been an unconverted man, an unconverted woman, if you would have been a soldier, if you would have been a sinner with no appreciation for that lovely man, you would have taken no care.
You would have taken no time. You would have given it no thought. You likely would have heaved that cross out of that little shallow socket, let it fall to the ground. And then go and do whatever tools that they used to loosen those nails.
And just to get the job done, how would you have done it? Would it just been hurry this up, there's work to do. There's business to take care of. There's things where we gotta go. We gotta be here, we gotta be there.
Get the man down, let's be done with this. Or would you be like Joseph and Nicodemus? And with those tender hearts and the hearts that are full of devotion for Christ, for who he is. Full of appreciation for what he has just endured at the cross.
Full of love for that man who was like no other man. Full of appreciation for the one that is known as the Messiah. The promised one that has come. And you would take that body down. And instead of flopping that cross with that corpse upon it and letting it hit the ground, you would take it and you would put it upon your own shoulder.
And you would lower it down to the ground slow. And then you would deal with that blessed man. And you would take your time and you would look at it. And those wounds would touch your soul. And the crown of thorns you'd take off gently.
And you might start to work those iron nails till they come loose. That you could pull them gently through, from out from his hands and his feet. And then there's Joseph. He wraps him in the linen. And they anoint him with a hundred pound weight.
He lays him in his own tomb. I wonder often times when Joseph of Arimathea come to realize that this man is, I'm laying this man in my tomb because he died my death. Have you ever discovered that, friend?
Have you ever discovered the reason why he died? Who it was that he died for? Why it was that he was forsaken? Why that he suffered such? Why the cross? What does it mean? So now he's in the tomb and things are relatively inactive.
Except for these Pharisees and these religious men. We read together the two times in Matthew where he foretells that he's going to rise again from the dead. There's other ones in the Gospels where he tells the disciples that he's going to rise again from the dead.
There's one in John and there's, in Mark, there is one. But what I was touched with reading this today is the reality of what they thought of Christ. These are the men now that had set up the false accusations.
These are the men that were responsible for, if I could say, the conviction. Those that would have chanted out for his crucifixion. Those that would have been in the mob. And now they come to Pilate. The chief priests and the Pharisees, they come together to Pilate and we read that they said, sir, remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, after three days I will rise again.
That deceiver said. Was Christ a deceiver? Do you treat him as a deceiver? The devil's called the deceiver, isn't he? And these people here, such was their misunderstanding and their hatred for Christ, that they call the Son of God a deceiver.
There's something similar when you come to 1 John, isn't it? That when we receive not the record that God has given of his son. We are calling God a liar. We're calling God a deceiver. And these people here now, they want to secure the tomb.
The body is in the tomb. The stone is rolled over the hole to the tomb. And they want to have guards set there. And they want to make sure that that body stays in that tomb. What are they afraid of? They say they're afraid that the disciples are going to come and steal the body away.
And then the last deception would be worse than the first. That word error means deceit. And so the first deception that they're accusing the Lord Jesus Christ is as being the Son of God. And the second one that would be worse than the first was that he claimed to rise again from the dead.
They were sure that he is dead. And what is impressive to me is the very thing that they did to make sure that that body didn't go anywhere is very proof of the reality that he really did die. He really did die.
And so I just like to take these errors here. There are two errors that people make in lifetime. Number one is that they live in unbelief. They live in unbelief. These men here, they're living their life in a denial of the realities of the person of Christ.
They're living their life as if this man and all the miracles that he did and all the signs and wonders that were accomplished by the Son of God, they're living in denial of the reality of who Christ is.
And there are people in this audience tonight and you're doing the same, maybe not intentionally. Maybe you don't realize what is taking place, but you're living your life in unbelief. And who Christ really is, who he is.
You haven't trusted him. You haven't believed him. You haven't rested on what he has said. Because you have your own way and we have our own ideas and we have our own desires. And so these men were living a life of unbelief on who Christ is.
Who is Christ to you? The Lord Jesus asked the question to the disciples, what think ye of Christ? Whose son is he? Really, who is Christ to you? Now be careful, because if you say I know he is the Son of God, and yet you're still in your sin, something's wrong.
I know he is the Son of God. I know he was sent by God into this world. But he's not your Savior. And you're living a life of unbelief. The Lord Jesus spoke much about faith, didn't he, and about belief.
And so what I'm challenging you tonight is this, this in the opening part of this meeting. Is what you say you believe really what you believe. I'll say that again. If you really believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, why are you not saved?
And so these men, here they are, they're all taken up with this body and this tomb. And they're trying to make sure that they're done with this man once and for all. And they're living their life in unbelief of who he is.
And they call him a deceiver. So what did he actually say? If the Lord Jesus is a deceiver, and he's trying to mislead the people, and he's trying to make himself God, what is it that the man said that was false, that was a lie?
The Lord Jesus could tell no lie, he could do no sin. And when the Lord Jesus told Nicodemus that you must be born again, he was telling him the truth. And when the Lord Jesus says, he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, he was telling the truth.
Because in reality, everyone that believed on him, and believed his word, received everlasting life. And that promise is the same in John 5, 24, now as it was then. But to call Christ a deceiver, to call God a liar, to believe not the record that God has given of his son, why did they do it?
Because it was against their personal ambitions. Jesus Christ was everything they could never be. Jesus Christ spoke with authority and with power. Our Lord Jesus Christ did the miracles that they could never do.
He raised the dead. He cleansed the leper. He cured the palsied man. He forgives sins. And for all those things, they hated him. They hated him. Is he a deceiver? He's no deceiver. He is the Son of God, holy, harmless, and undefiled, and separate from sinners.
And now these men, they have to cover their tracks. They have to make sure that this man's bones remain in the grave. And I find a great delight in the fact that these men and their wisdom seal the stone to try to keep him in.
They might as well have been trying to stop the seasons from changing. There is no way that a sealed stone can keep the Son of God in. What's the error number two that men and women commit today that is worse than the first?
If the first error is to live in unbelief and the first error is to revel in our own priorities and our own ambitions and to deny the truth of the word of God and to deny the person of Christ and reject him openly, then the second error that is greater than the first is not just living in unbelief, but it's dying in unbelief.
And the last error is worse than the first. Because, friend, tonight there's opportunity to repent. There's opportunity to change. There's opportunity to change our attitude, to agree with God against ourself.
There's opportunity for salvation. There's opportunity. But when someone commits the second error and they die in unbelief, you'll never guess who they meet. Who do men and women who die in their sins meet?
The risen, glorified, exalted Son of God. Where do they meet him? The place is called the judgment of the great white throne. You see what happens to those who live in unbelief and die in unbelief. Those that live in their sin and they die in their sin.
Those that continue on in the path that we are on by nature. Those that continue on in their own ambitions and their own ideas and they neglect the Savior and they call God the liar. And in the day to come, they never bow the knee in time.
They never acknowledge the risen Son of God as the Savior. They've never trusted him with their soul. They never sought for him for the forgiveness of sins. They've never cried out for mercy. And they die in their sin.
And they meet him. And those who would not bow in time, they bow the knee in eternity. Because the Bible says that the name of Jesus, every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
And every knee shall bow. Every knee shall bow. And when you go through your Bible and you look at the man like Saul, and he met the Lord Jesus, the risen Christ on the road to Damascus, the voice came down from heaven, what happened?
He trembled. Friend, have you ever trembled having dealings with God? Has the reality of dealing with a divine person ever gripped your soul? And they die in their unbelief. And the Lord Jesus, who tonight is with an outstretched arm and an ear that is listening, who is longing to save and is longing to rescue and longing to forgive.
He's listening for the cry of every sinner. He's looking and he's waiting. And there he is, he's seeking the lost and the lost keep running. And he's going for those that are blind and they're just groping against the wall in the darkness.
But when they die and they meet him at the great white throne, it's the same man. Can you imagine what it would be like for these men here if they weren't part of those men that were saved in the book of Acts to meet the Savior in eternity?
What about the Romans that held the hammer? What about the Romans that held the nail? What about the Jews that rejected him? What about you, friend? And there at that judgment of the great white throne, which takes place in space.
And the earth and the heaven have fled away. And there, one by one, you'll meet the risen Son of God. And your knee will bow, and the books will be opened, and the great search will be made, and your name will not be found in the book of life.
And that one that died upon the cross to save sinners, now it is his right and his righteous duty to hurl unbelieving souls into the lake of fire. Put the seal on the tomb. Try to keep him in the grave, if you will, but he's not there.
Argue against God and try to prove your point and prove your arguments and try to explain away the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. To live in unbelief is to call Christ a deceiver. To live in unbelief is to call God a liar.
Friend, it's solemn tonight, because up from the grave he arose. You know the thief on the cross, he trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as the Lord Jesus was dying the same death that he was dying. Interesting man.
He had to believe what the Lord said verbally, that the one that is dying, if it were you or I, we would be questioning it. The one dying the same death that I'm dying, I'm supposed to trust him to give me everlasting life?
And that malefactor trusted the Savior. He knew him to be the king. He knew that he had a kingdom. He knew that he would live again. For he said, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And that man trusted a man who was dying on a cross right beside him to be the eternal one, to be, in fact, the one that was promised.
To be, in fact, his own personal savior. And tonight, God is not expecting you to trust one whose bones are still in the grave. And God is not expecting you to trust one whose bones have long since turned to dust.
But God is requiring that every person, every person, trust the one that he raised again from the dead. He is the Savior. He is the only Savior. Two heirs tonight. There are some here, many here, that started with the first heir and they lived in unbelief, but they repented and trusted Christ.
But for those who live in unbelief and die in unbelief, the last heir is greater than the first.