The Resurrection of Christ

This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.

Why the Resurrection Matters for the Whole Gospel

So we are in the second last section in the Gospel of Mark, in Mark chapter 15, beginning in verse 42, and I'm always trying to keep you on your toes. Sometimes you'll notice that I'll start with a quote or a story or some other thing to help engage you in the text.

This is preaching 101 when it comes to introductions, to show that every person that sits down in their chair on a Sunday would appreciate that this text is for you, and it has tremendous value for you.

So I'm giving you a little look behind the curtain, and so I want to engage you this afternoon with a question. It's an important question, or maybe an important series of questions, and the question is this.

What is the significance of the resurrection? Kids, maybe you can think about that for a moment. What is the significance of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ? In all of the biblical, historical account of Christ's life and His work of redemption, what is the big deal about Christ's bodily resurrection from the grave?

I would venture to say that if you were to go out and hit the streets and survey the average Christian today, that you would find a broad range of opinions on this resurrection of Jesus Christ. But almost without fail, if you were to spend time with each of those individual Christians, I'm not even talking about professing Christians, but real Christians, if you were to spend time with them and drill down deep and get to the root of what their view of the resurrection is, you'd probably find that they would end up in one of two particular camps.

Two distinct groups of people would emerge. In one camp, you would find those people who are all about the resurrection. They would have a radical or perhaps even a radically unbiblical view of the resurrection.

To these people, Christ's resurrection, along with all of His other miracles, would be of paramount importance to the neglect of the great doctrines of Scripture, all of the doctrines of Christ. In this camp, there would be very little emphasis on Christ's teaching or even on His atoning death on the cross or even the apostles' letters concerning Christ, but far more emphasis on signs and wonders and Christ's resurrection as the chief or the greatest, the finale of His signs and wonders.

You might encounter people from what I'll call the hyper-charismatic movement with their kenosis theory, the idea that because Christ emptied Himself of all of His godhood, everything that Christ did, we can do now.

You might encounter those people who said, just as Christ was able to raise people from the dead and raise Himself from the dead, so we too have that same power that Christ had. Or you might encounter Christians, again true Christians, who come from the seeker-sensitive movement and its more subtle form of the perversion of the resurrection.

Many of you are probably familiar with a man named Andy Stanley. This is now two weeks in a row I'm naming names. I'm not doing it to start a new ministry of being pejorative or speaking pejoratively about pastors and Christian leaders or so-called Christian leaders, but many of you know the story and I think it highlights something important.

He's a leader of a mega-church in the United States, one of the biggest churches in the seeker-sensitive movement. And he said this in one of his sermons, he said, I am absolutely convinced of the following, that in the marketplace, in the public square, in the classroom, we must shift the debate away from whether the entire Bible is true.

Shift the debate away from scripture and focus the debate on whether Jesus rose from the.

Dead.

Now that in and of itself isn't too much except that part of Andy Stanley's remedy to all of this is to unhitch ourselves from the Old Testament, even to unhitch ourselves from the authority of scripture.

He says in one of his sermons that we shouldn't say that Jesus loves us because the Bible says it, but we should love it because it's demonstrated in the resurrection. He's gone so far as to say the story of Jesus isn't even worth telling apart from the resurrection.

So in one camp, you would find a group of people in your survey that is hyper-fixated on the resurrection of Christ to the neglect of the whole Christ of scripture. And if you were to continue to conduct this survey, you'd find another group of people, another camp, and in this segment of the Christian population, you'd find those who put very little emphasis on the resurrection.

In theory, of course, these Christians would affirm the importance of the event, the essential necessity of the resurrection as part of the gospel message, but they would have to admit that when it comes to their day-to-day lives, they give very little thought to Christ's resurrection, that there isn't much room in their gospel for the resurrection and it bears very little or has very little bearing on their lives.

You'd probably find one of these two camps in each of the person that you survey. And I would venture to say that probably for many of us, we would fall in the second camp, the camp where we believe that Christ rose from the dead.

Indeed, we would say on Resurrection Sunday, He is risen. He is risen indeed. We would say it emphatically. And yet, there's very little room for the resurrection in our theology and in our day-to-day lives.

I once heard a couple of men from the US speaking about church membership interviews, interviewing people as they desire to be part of a church. And one of the questions that they ask people and we ask people when people want to be a member in this church is, explain the gospel to us.

And these two brothers from biblically sound churches in the United States said that they see from these membership interviews that the vast majority of biblically sound, conservative, evangelical, even reformed Christians neglect the resurrection.

They will tell you about Christ's righteous life, His active obedience in life. They will tell you about Christ's death on the cross, His passive obedience as a substitute in our place. They will tell you about His teaching and His miracles and all of His person.

They will speak about Peter and Paul and John in all of their writings concerning Christ's atoning work. But they neglect one thing, and it's always one thing in particular, the resurrection of Christ, that Christ died in accordance with the scriptures.

And on the third day, rose in accordance with the scriptures. Many Christians today get the resurrection wrong. And I would venture to say that there are many Christians in this room who get the resurrection.

Wrong.

And so that's what we're going to spend our time on today. Rather than falling into the Andy Stanley camp and clinging to the resurrection of Christ while building our house on the sand, or falling into the other camp of clinging to the death of Christ at the expense of the resurrection, we will look at a fulsome view of the whole gospel of Christ from His life to His death, to His burial, and to His triumphant resurrection.

So this week as we near the end of our study in this gospel, we're going to explore the resurrection of Christ. And I hope to demonstrate, as I do every single week, that the resurrection or this doctrine that is before us today is of great value to you.

In your theology, yes. And in your life, yes. And that all of us would leave out of this room rejoicing that we serve and worship and trust not a dead Christ, but a risen Christ. And so I had us turn to Mark chapter 15, verse 42.

Let's read that together now. Verses 42 through 47. And when evening had come, since it was the day of preparation, that is the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council who was also himself, looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.

Pilate was surprised to hear that he should have already died and summoned the centurion. He asked him whether he was already dead. And when he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the corpse to Joseph.

And Joseph bought a linen shroud and, taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock. And he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb.

Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of Joseph, saw where he was laid. I've broken up this particular sermon into three different headings. We're going to look at three different sections. And the first one you'll see in the handout in your bulletin is this, the honorable burial or an honorable burial.

Last week we heard how Christ had gone to the cross to die as our penal substitute. And you'll remember that the scene ended in verse 41 at three o 'clock in the afternoon with our Lord's body hanging on that cross, pierced through.

We saw that the climactic confession of the centurion who said, truly this is the Son of God. And then we looked at the grief of the women who watched from a distance. And while the week now has passed between our last study and our study today, it's really only been an hour or so, maybe less, we don't know exactly.

But a very short time between verses 1, verses 41, and verses 42. And verse 42 sets the stage for our text. It tells us that on Friday afternoon, as the night was fast approaching, there was only a short time of preparation remaining before the Jews were to rest on the Sabbath day.

Mark is writing to a Gentile audience, and so that's why he's explaining what the day of preparation was. The day of preparation was the daytime during Friday that allowed everyone to get ready for the Sabbath day.

In some ways, it's instructive for us as Christians, even, that we should make preparations ahead of the Lord's day so that we would be able to focus solely on Him in worship. But here they were on the day of preparation.

And what this meant was that if Christ were to come down from the cross and to be buried, it would have to take place before sunset, or about 6 p .m. on that day of preparation, on this Friday afternoon.

Christ would have to come down in haste from the cross. And it might seem disturbing to us, but this would be contrary to the common practice of the Romans. If you were in 1st century Israel, and you were observing a crucifixion, what you would find is that the Romans had absolutely no problem leaving a body on the cross for a day, or two days, or three days, or more.

As we heard last week, the cross of the Romans was a terror apparatus that was used not only to punish criminals, but as a warning to those who would violate any of Rome's laws, or at least any of their capital laws.

And so what would often happen is that the body would be placed on the cross, nailed to the cross, and days afterwards it would be left there to decay as a putrid and terrifying warning of what would come to those who violated the emperor's laws.

Now we don't know what the plan for Christ's body was, but what we find in verse 43 is that there was a righteous man, a member of the council, that is the Jewish Sanhedrin, man named Joseph of Arimathea, who refused to allow Christ's body to be subjected to this dishonor.

And so what we find, in fact, is that Joseph was a man who knew the law of God and he sought to obey it. I won't have us turn there, but in Deuteronomy chapter 21 we read what Jews were supposed to do to those who had been put to death.

Deuteronomy 21 .22 says,. If a man has committed a crime punishable by death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day.

For a hanged man is cursed by God. You shall not defile your land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance. So Joseph was a law-abiding man. But Mark tells us a bit more about Joseph. In fact, Mark tells us that Joseph was a man who was looking for the kingdom of God.

Now kids, what do you think that means, that Joseph was a man looking for the kingdom of.

God?

If you had to guess, any answers, any guesses? You thought that the kingdom of God was on earth? Yeah, absolutely, that's a great start. He was looking for the way that God had made. And Matthew tells us a bit more, Matthew 27 is more explicit.

In his gospel he says that Joseph was actually a disciple of Jesus Christ. In John chapter 19 he goes even a bit further still and says that he was a disciple, but secretly for fear of the Jews. And so here we have Joseph, a covert disciple of our Lord, seeking to give him an honorable burial.

And what's more, we don't see it in the gospel of Mark, but if we were to survey, and sometimes it's difficult to preach through Mark because he is so concise in his language, but if we were to survey the other gospels, we find for instance in John chapter 19 that it was not only Joseph of Arimathea, but a man named Nicodemus who also joined to help.

And so these two men, at great cost to themselves, sought to prepare Christ for burial. Of course, we find Nicodemus in chapter 3 learning from Christ about what it means to be born again. And so here, Joseph of Arimathea took courage and asked Pilate for the body of Christ.

And it's interesting that that word should be used in our text in verse 43, that he took courage. Make no mistake about it, he would have taken courage to make this request. Not only was Joseph publicly undermining his peers in the Sanhedrin, the same peers who had just condemned Christ to death and said all kinds of evil things against him on Golgotha, but he was approaching a cruel governor, Pilate.

And we looked at how cruel Pilate was in recent weeks. A cruel governor, Pilate, who had just demonstrated that he would stop at nothing to pacify that same council of the Sanhedrin. And so for Joseph, this request would have come at a cost, at the cost of his reputation.

It's probably not coincidental that he's described as a respected member of the council. And perhaps afterwards, he was no longer a respected member, or a member of the same level of respect. But it also would come at the cost, perhaps even of his own life, if he found that Pilate was in a foul mood about all that had happened that day.

And so we see here that this was Joseph's first public act of faith, and it was a costly.

One.

And the interactions that ensue, no doubt providentially documented by Mark, are very important. And they're important for a good reason. Some have suggested that if Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus were to make haste to take Christ down from the cross and to prepare him for burial before the Sabbath, it might have been missed that Christ had not actually died.

There are still professing Christians today who believe in what's called the swoon hypothesis, which teaches that Jesus didn't actually die on the cross, that he only fainted, that he became unconscious, and by mistake he was taken down from the cross too soon and placed in the tomb.

And once in the tomb, he awoke and revived and came back to life in a sense. There are many liberal Christians that believe that, like I was talking about last week. People who might even deny that Christ was a real person, that he came about by the virgin birth, that he was sinless, that he died for sin.

But in verses 44 and 45, if you're into apologetics, this is important. We see here that what Mark has actually done for us is he's assembled two or three witnesses who can speak to the fact that Christ was indeed dead.

First we have the centurion, who confirms that Christ had died. We have Pilate, who maybe didn't have interaction with the body, but who is satisfied with the centurion's report. And then we have Joseph of Arimathea, who in verse 45 takes possession, not of the body of Christ, but what does our text say, the corpse of the Lord Jesus.

And so Christ was indeed dead, despite what the swoon theorists might say. And it was the custom in first century Israel, or as was the custom in first century Israel, Jesus' body was wrapped in linens that would have been covered in spices.

According to the account in John chapter 19, he was taken to a garden tomb near the site of the crucifixion, the tomb that belonged to Joseph and his family, a wealthy and a respected man, and he was laid to rest there.

And Jewish law was very specific about how burials were to take place. A burial had to take place outside of the walls of Jerusalem, in a hewn tomb that would be measured six feet by nine feet, dug into the limestone walls outside of the city.

And inside there would have been multiple hewn shelves where bodies would be put to rest there. And to keep the ritual impurity of the dead in, and the animals and the grave robbers out, a disc-shaped rock would be slid in front of the tomb door.

Now how heavy do you think that disc-shaped rock was that would slide in front of the.

Tomb?

Some that have been found outside of Jerusalem, and the thousands that surround the city, have weighed as much as two tons, or 4 ,000 pounds. So we're told that Christ was put in the tomb, that this several ton rock was put in its place.

For Joseph, I've said it already, I'll say it again, this was costly. For a wealthy member of the ruling class to do this, he was not only violating the trust of his council members in the Sanhedrin, but he was actually breaking the Mishnah, which is the written oral tradition of the Jews.

Because the Mishnah, if we were to read it, forbids the use of family tombs for those who have died a dishonorable death. So here, Joseph violates the Mishnah, and at the same time, fulfills Old Testament prophecy.

If we were to look at that, Isaiah 53 verse 9, it says this, "...and they made his grave with a wicked and with a rich man in his death.". That rich man we know on this side of Christ's death is Joseph of Arimathea.

And verse 47 tells us that all of this was done in the witness, in the presence of witnesses, in the presence of Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of Joseph. Matthew 27 even tells us that later the tomb was secured with an official seal from Rome and that a guard, a well-resourced, well-armed guard would have been placed around the tomb to keep anyone from tampering with the grave.

Now what do we get from all of this? Firstly, we see that Christ was in fact dead. If anyone comes to you and says, well Christ didn't die, he just fell asleep, he just fainted, he just became unconscious for a short period of time, you can come back to Mark chapter 15 and say, Mark went to great lengths to demonstrate in the presence of two and three witnesses that Christ was in fact dead.

The Old Testament foretold it, the New Testament confirms it, and even the extra-biblical writing of historians corroborates it. Secondly, we see that Christ received the honorable burial that was befitting a king.

I've been reading through the Samuels and the Kings and the Chronicles and I've noticed how all of these kings, almost all of them, there are a few exceptions, but many of these kings were vile and wicked men, and yet even when they died dishonorable deaths, what would happen but they would be carted back to Jerusalem or carted back to their home in Israel and they would be given a proper burial.

Well here we see Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus giving Christ an honorable burial in violation of the tradition, but in accord with the word of God. When Christ said on the cross, it is finished, it was indeed finished.

He didn't need to hang on the cross for days and days and days to demonstrate it. When he cried out, it is finished, redemption was accomplished. And then the third thing we see here, is that here we see two men who were prepared to courageously honor Christ the King, even at great cost to themselves, in violation of the tradition, but in accord with the word of God.

And such is the call of every Christian. Your brothers and sisters, like Nicodemus and like Joseph of Arimathea, we have gone about our lives as secret Christians, secret Christians in our workplaces.

How many of us say, well I think my co-workers are Christian, or I think my co-workers know that I'm a Christian, or I think that my classmates know that I'm a Christian. This is the call of every Christian, not to remain a secret Christian, but to identify with the suffering and with the dead, with the crucified Christ and with the risen Christ.

We cannot be like, if I can use him as an example, an Ann Lee Stanley, who shuns any idea that is not palatable to the unbelieving world. But we are called to identify with Christ in his humiliation and in his death.

We are called to pay the price for honoring and serving our Lord Jesus Christ. And when we do, we will not find the world's applause. I assure you, our brother alluded to it just as he was giving announcements about evangelism this week, and for those of you who are in the Signal chat, you heard about it, difficulty awaits you if you're going to identify with Christ in the public square.

It's coming, sooner or later, but dear brothers and sisters, so was the joy of faithful obedience to our Lord. How many of us have known that joy, when we were willing to stand out like a sore thumb, to be reviled by the world, but to know that we have honored and served and obeyed Christ in a moment when there was an opportune time to do it.

A few years ago, I was reading to my children a biography of William Wilberforce. I don't know if you guys remember that biography. William Wilberforce, if you don't know, was an abolitionist of slavery and a member of British Parliament in the 1700s and the 1800s.

He was a faithful Christian man and he often came under tremendous scrutiny because his fellow members of Parliament and business major, I suppose you could say important businessmen in London, had a lot to profit from the slave trade.

Here he was, pressing on, trying to set the slaves free. At the end of his life, he did see the abolition of slavery in England. He led the way in many respects to the abolition of slavery in other places.

At the end of his life, his sons took it upon themselves to write his biography. As they were looking through one of his journals, they made this comment. They said, speaking about his obedience and his difficulties and his trials and his persecutions, they said, the pages of his later journal are full of bursts of joy and thankfulness and with his children and his chosen friends, his heart, his full heart, welled out in the same blessed strains.

He seems too happy not to express his happiness. His song was ever the loving kindness of God. Richard Baxter, who wrote the book, The Reformed Pastor, a Puritan man, he endured persecution and war and imprisonment for 18 months.

The deterioration of his health, even as he sought to make Christ great in England. He said this, oh what a life men might live if they were but willing and diligent. God would have our joys to be far more than our sorrows, yea, he would have us to have no sorrow, but only that which tendeth to joy, and only that by serving and seeking to honor Christ.

Brethren, we are often caught in the middle of such trivial matters, and as a result we're miserable for it. But who among us will follow after Christ and see ourselves decrease that he might increase?

We are those who will sacrifice the world's respect for Christ's honor. I think that Joseph and Nicodemus lead the way. Next, I want to read verses 1 -6. When the Sabbath was passed, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome, bought spices so that they might go and anoint him.

And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. And they were saying to one another, who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb? And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back.

It was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed. And he said to them, do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who is crucified?

He has risen. He is not here. See the place where they laid him. So we've looked at Christ's honorable burial. I want us next to look at his triumphant resurrection. Our text tells us that the Sabbath day had now passed, and some of the women had brought spices so that they might further anoint Christ's body for burial.

Probably in the haste of Joseph and Nicodemus' wrapping him in linens, there wasn't sufficient time before the Sabbath began to properly anoint him. So here, these sisters, as a final act of love and affection to their Lord, come with these spices.

As was often the case in first century Israel, they would not embalm dead bodies, but use these spices and these different ointments as a mixture to offset the smell of decay. And verse 2 tells us an important detail, that when the sun had already risen on that Sunday morning, that was when they had gone to the tomb.

Now, this is an important detail, because again, in an apologetic situation, people might say, well, it was dark, and they might have walked to the wrong tomb, and they might have found an empty tomb that was being prepared for someone else, and so on and so forth, and so seek to deny the resurrection of Christ.

But here, in the light of day, the same tomb that they had seen Christ buried in two days prior, they return. And when these women were on their way to the tomb, they discussed among themselves the inevitable obstacle that would be in the way of their final act of love.

Who is going to move this hulking stone, this two-ton stone, from the doorway? And verse 4 tells us that this very large stone was already rolled back. Now this is where, as I read and as I preach through the Gospel of Mark, I think to myself, oh, it would have been great to have all of the extra details that we find in the other Gospels.

I'm only going to highlight a little bit from Matthew's Gospel for the sake of time. But in Matthew's Gospel, he says this, that it was after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, that Mary Magdalene, this is Matthew 28 verse 1, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were on their way when, behold, there was a great earthquake.

For an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. Matthew says, his appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him, the guards trembled and became like dead men.

But the angels said to the women, do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who is crucified. He is not here, but he is risen, as he said, come see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead.

And behold, he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him. See, I have told you. And so, here we have the women coming to this tomb. This has just happened. And what we read in Mark's account is that as they enter the tomb, there is this description of a young man.

Matthew's gospel in Matthew 28 tells us that he was an angel. And again, interestingly enough, Mark, who is always about economy in his gospel, goes into a very strange number of details, I think to demonstrate the veracity of the claim of Christ's resurrection.

He says in verse 5 that the young man was sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed. These details, I think, show the truthfulness and the very carefully observed details of their testimony.

And it's noteworthy as well, sisters, you might appreciate this, that women were the first to witness and to testify to this event. Now, if I were going to craft up a story of a resurrected Christ in the first century of Israel, it would be to my great disadvantage to say that it was women who made the very first discovery.

One commentator says, the mention of female witnesses attests to the veracity of the resurrection narrative, for had early Christians fabricated the resurrection story, the testimony of women, and that in all four gospels, was no way to go about it.

Even two centuries after Christ's resurrection, as one pagan man named Celsus would poke at origin, he would say that the claim of the Christians was based, quote-unquote, on the gossip of women about the empty tomb.

But here we see that Christ accredited with being the first witnesses of that empty tomb. Now, you might ask the question, why in all the world would women be the first witnesses? Because that's the truth.

And because this claim of Christ's resurrection is true. And in verse 6, the angel relays this message, that Christ has risen with the power to shake even the most hardened soldiers. Up from the grave he arose, as we were just singing, with a mighty triumph over his foes.

This was not a faint resuscitation of a weakened Christ in the tomb, but this was a triumphant resurrection of our glorified Lord. Brothers and sisters, Christ was dead. He was on that cross, and on that cross, he died.

And he died for sinners. And if we were to put ourselves in the position of the disciples, but for a moment, what a devastating thing it would be to see your Lord, the Lord that you had just followed.

Peter even, as he said, and you are the Christ, the son of the living God. Christ was dead, but now, dear saints, he is alive. He is alive, and that changes everything. Alive, not for a decade or two like Lazarus, but alive to live forever more.

Like the angel said in Matthew 28 .6, he is not here, he is risen. As he said, come and see the place where he lay. He was here, and now he is gone. And there are people today, they might have many claims against Christianity, but we can all say with one voice, take me to the tomb, and show me that Christ was but a man.

We know the historical Jesus existed, take me to the tomb. Dear friends, the best tomb they can take you to is an empty one, because Christ is.

Alive.

Paul writes of this event, as our brother read in 1 Corinthians 15, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. He was buried, he was raised on the third day in accordance to the scriptures.

He appeared to Cephas, and then to the twelve, and then five hundred brothers at one time. These women, these disciples, they no longer followed a dead Christ, but a risen Christ. A Christ who had defeated sin, who had defeated death, who had defeated Satan, and who lives forever now with his saints to reign.

And what are we to do, dear brother and sister? For most of us, we read this passage and we stare, and we say, okay, so he is risen. But what does this crucifixion mean? I wish I had more time to go into the depths of it.

I'm just going to survey it from 37 ,000 feet, but the meaning of Christ's resurrection is almost unbelievable. For one, and I'm just going to list a couple sub-points, Christ's resurrection proclaims his victory and his ultimate authority.

What was one of the first things that Christ did after he rose from the dead? In Matthew 28, 18, he said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. What this means, brothers and sisters, is that we don't simply worship and remember a dead Christ, a dying Christ, a Christ who died on the cross for our sins, but brothers and sisters, when we worship together today, and when we go home this evening, and when we go to work tomorrow, and when we come to the Lord's table, we are worshiping and remembering and bringing to our minds not a dead Christ, but a living Christ, and a living Christ who is sovereign and supreme over all things, every detail.

There is no maverick molecule in all the universe, as our brother R .C. Sproul would say. Christ is in control of every circumstance, every trial you endure. Christ is sovereign over that. Every joy that you experience, Christ is sovereign indeed over that.

Every sorrow, every circumstance, in all things, Jesus Christ reigns supreme. I love what Abraham Kuyper once said, he said, there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry, mine.

It is all Christ's. You've heard me tell stories before about my conversion and how the Lord saved me in a very liberal church. I'm not here to talk about liberal and conservative, I'm just saying they did not believe the Bible, the pastor did not even believe that Christ was a historical person, and yet in spite of that, the Lord saved me there.

I remember one brother that would come, and I believe some of you have probably heard this story before, I don't know how this man existed in that church, but when we would come to church on Sundays, Nicole and I would be sitting there with our Bibles, my wife and I would be sitting there with our Bibles, and oftentimes if you looked, he had his Bible, and those were the three Bibles in that church, and he would get up, they would invite him to read scripture from time to time, and I want to say that he knew exactly what he was doing, but he would get up behind the pulpit with his Bible, and he would give a little sermonette before he would read the text, almost as if to bring the people in that liberal church under the ministry of the Word of God for even just a moment, and one of the things that he would regularly do is he would get up behind that pulpit, I can't recall his name, I really pressed hard because I'd like to give him credit for this, but he would open his Bible, and he would often turn, there was an illuminated cross at the back of the platform, and he would point to that cross, and he would say, we worship a Christ who is not on that cross, that cross is empty because Christ is alive, and he would say, we are not like the Catholics who keep Christ on the cross, but Christ has risen, he isn't there, he is alive.