When Faith Wavers

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Last week, our adult Bible study Sunday school class was concluded a series on the one another passages which Brother Mike and Brother Andy had been co-teaching and I don't get to attend that class.
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I teach a class to our young people with Brother Mike Ward, but I do get the opportunity to watch it on video through the week and I often try to do that.
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In last week's class, Brother Mike mentioned that one of the reasons for Christian community, the church, one of the reasons for the one another's is that we support one another's faith.
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And the reason for this is because there are times when our faith wavers.
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In fact, he said very clearly, if you've never dealt with that, then it's hard to believe you when you say that, that you've never ever had a struggle and that's very true.
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The enemies of the soul are always at work, whether it be the world, the flesh, or the devil himself, we are constantly being barraged with those that would attempt to introduce doubt into our minds and into our faith.
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Well today we are going to examine one of the great cases of doubt in the Bible.
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In fact, it is one of those cases where the very man himself was labeled with the title doubter.
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In fact, if I were to say to you, I want to talk to you about Thomas, you would say often, you mean doubting Thomas.
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That's right, because that's how people often define Thomas in their minds.
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Which I want to say this from the outset, I think it's completely unfair to define a man by one moment.
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To call him doubting Thomas is no more fair than to call me doubting Keith, or to call Mike doubting Mike, or to call Andy doubting Andy, or any of you, because if you've never ever struggled with any type of wavering in your faith, then again I would wonder about you.
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We all, again, we all fight the world, we all fight the devil, we all fight the flesh.
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And in that sense, calling him doubting Thomas is a little unfair.
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I think about this story, Jesus, when Lazarus died, Jesus said, we're going to go to him.
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And Thomas said, let us go with him, that we may die with him.
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Now that may sound somewhat pessimistic, but at least it was a statement of bold pessimism.
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If nothing else, he may have been a little pessimistic, but at least he said, I'm willing to go so that we can die together.
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Thomas was in the upper room with Jesus when Jesus said those words, let not your hearts be troubled.
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You believe in God, believe also in me and my father's house and many rooms.
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And he said, I'm going to prepare a place for you.
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And Thomas piped up.
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In fact, it's the only other time we hear him talking is in John 11, John 14 and John 20.
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The only other time his name is mentioned in the Gospels is in the list of the names of the apostles.
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We hear him in John 11 when he said, we'll go die with you.
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And in John 14, when Jesus said, I go to prepare a place, Thomas said, we don't know where you're going.
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How can we know away? How can we know the way to go again? That slight pessimism in his voice.
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We don't know where to go.
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How do we know? And then we hear his voice again in John 20.
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But this time his voice is more.
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It's more hardened this time, his voice comes across very recalcitrant.
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It's very it's very difficult.
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Because he says those very famous words, unless I see his hands and put my finger in his side, I will not believe it's a powerful thought, but we're going to look at that today and we're going to see that Thomas had a reason to believe and so do we.
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We have every reason to believe in the risen Christ.
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Let's stand and let's read the text.
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So funny, I had my my regular Bible was outside this morning.
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I have no idea where it is.
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I had to reach down.
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I have my Greek interlinear here.
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So if I mess up a little, forgive me, I'm having to work off this, which is fine.
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Says now Thomas, one of the twelve called the twin, was not with them when Jesus came.
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So the other disciples told him we have seen the Lord, but he said to them, unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails and place my finger into the mark of the nails and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.
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Eight days later.
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His disciples were inside again and Thomas was with them.
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Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be with you.
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Then he said to Thomas, put your finger here, see my hands, put out your hand and place it in my side.
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Now, do not disbelieve, but believe, Thomas answered him, my Lord and my God, Jesus said, have you believed because you have seen me, blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.
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Amen.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for your truth.
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And I pray, Lord, now that you would, as I always preach, Lord, keep me from error.
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Keep me tied to the text and let your word speak, word of God speak and pour out like rain.
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Father, I pray that you would open the hearts of every person in this room, Lord, for the believer that they would be conformed ever more greatly to the image of Christ and Lord for the unbeliever that they would be faced with the reality of the resurrection today and know that there is no excuse for not believing in the Lord.
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There is no excuse for unbelief and there is no reason to procrastinate another day.
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Lord, help me to preach with urgency this morning as a dying man to dying men.
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And I pray this in Jesus name.
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Amen.
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Each of the gospels present to us the resurrection of Jesus.
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The accounts all contain some differing details.
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All of which do require harmonization.
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One day, one of my great goals in ministry is to one day preach an entire harmony of the four gospels, but I don't know how long it would take.
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We're still three years in Genesis.
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I can't imagine what four gospels.
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Mike did a really great job Friday night of doing a harmony of just the passage on the court appearances of Jesus and the different high courts.
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And that's the kind of thing I'd love to do for the whole gospels.
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But again, these stories can be harmonized, but there are some difficulties sometimes in harmonizing where were the angels and were they here or there.
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When you read the four stories in succession, you see that it kind of is a little confusing.
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Not impossible, but a little difficult to understand.
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But there are some things about the events that are contained in all four gospels.
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And those are the parts that I think are very important for us to remember.
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One, it was women who first came and found the empty tomb.
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And those women among them were Mary Magdalene and some other ladies.
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And they were the ones who found the tomb empty.
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They were greeted by angelic messengers who made them aware of Jesus' resurrection.
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He is not here for He is risen.
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These women went and told the apostles and others.
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And soon all of the apostles would see the risen Jesus for themselves.
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And they would believe.
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And one of the appearances of Jesus happened the evening of the resurrection.
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Jesus was raised on what day of the week? First day of the week, which is Sunday.
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So He was raised early Sunday morning.
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He was seen by Mary Magdalene at the garden.
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We read that in our sunrise service this morning as our opening text.
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We read about Mary seeing Him, thinking He was a gardener.
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And saying, you know, tell us where the body is.
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And then she realizes it's Jesus and says, Rabboni, teacher, it is you.
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And so we see that incident happening there.
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That was Sunday morning.
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That evening, the apostles were gathered together behind closed doors.
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In fact, if you're in John 20, go back up to verse 19.
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It says, on the evening of that day, the first day of the week.
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This is resurrection Sunday, and they're having evening church.
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There's a little plug there for evening worship.
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They're having Sunday evening church.
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They're behind locked doors, and it tells us why.
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It says, for fear of the Jews.
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Understand this.
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They were not satisfied with having just killed Jesus.
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They didn't want any of Jesus' message to continue to go out.
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And so the disciples had seen Jesus beaten, bloodied, and crucified.
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And so now they know they could be next.
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So they have gathered together behind locked doors, out of fear of the Jews.
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And Jesus came and stood among them.
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Interestingly enough, it doesn't tell us how He came in.
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It doesn't say He was hiding in a closet and He came out like David Copperfield.
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It doesn't say that He climbed in through a window.
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It just says He was there, behind locked doors.
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And I believe, particularly, that the glorified body of Christ was not limited by the restraints of time and space, and He could go wherever He wanted to go.
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And so He's there behind locked doors with them, and He says, Peace be with you.
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When He said this, verse 20, He showed them His hands and His side.
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That's going to become important in a moment, because that's the very thing that Thomas is going to demand.
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See, the first thing Jesus says, It's me, look, look at my hands.
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See these holes? That's the nail holes.
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See this side? That's where they shoved the spear in, and it pierced the pericardium, the sac that's around the heart, and that's why it poured out with blood and water.
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This is all that.
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It's me.
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Then the disciples were glad.
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One of the most understatements of the Bible.
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They were glad, of course.
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They were very glad.
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When they saw the Lord, Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you, as the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.
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And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit, and if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven, and if you withhold the forgiveness of any, it is withheld.
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Now that entire verse 22 and 23 could be a sermon all of its own of what Christ is saying to the apostles there and how they're receiving the Spirit.
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And I want to leave that for another time.
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That's important passages, though.
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But what happens next is interesting.
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In verse 24 it says, Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, that's the way it's in King James, but in the ESV it says the twin, was not with them when Jesus came.
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Now, we don't know a lot about Thomas.
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As I said earlier, he's only mentioned speaking three times.
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It's all in the Gospel of John.
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John 11, John 14, John 20.
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And all the other times we see Thomas is in the lists of the apostles.
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He's mentioned 11 times in the ESV.
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Most of them are in the lists.
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But it makes a point to say he was not there.
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He was not with them.
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And some people, some real creative pastors, have made the argument, Well, see, this is why you don't want to miss evening church.
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That's not the point of the text.
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But it's an interesting application.
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But there has been a lot of conjecture among commentators about why Thomas is missing.
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Because the text doesn't say it.
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It just simply says he was not with them.
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Alexander McLaren wrote a wonderful commentary set.
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Brother Mike actually gave it to me.
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It's in my office.
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Alexander McLaren's Expositions of the Holy Scriptures.
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And he takes the task of writing about this particular incident.
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And he said this.
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He said, Thomas did the very worst thing that a melancholy man can do.
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And you say, what do you mean melancholy? Don't you think they were all melancholy? Having seen Jesus beaten, bloodied, and hung on a cross? He says, Thomas did the very worst thing that a melancholy man can do.
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He went away to brood in a corner by himself.
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And so to exaggerate all of his idiosyncrasies, to distort the proposition of truth, to hug his despair by separating himself from his fellows.
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So we don't know where Thomas was.
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But we know where he weren't.
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Not good English, just good theology.
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We know where he weren't.
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He weren't with the church.
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He weren't with the apostles.
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He was off by himself.
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Probably off, as McLaren says, probably off brooding.
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Because he was a man who, even though he demonstrated some times of great faith, was also a man who was somewhat known for a pessimistic spirit.
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And having seen his Lord crucified, without an expectation of resurrection, he found himself alone and apart from the others.
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Therefore, when we get to verse 25, it makes sense.
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It says, So the other disciples told him, We have seen the Lord, but he said to them, Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.
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That's a strong word.
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That's not just doubt.
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That is a word of defiance.
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That is a skeptical and obstinate heart.
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He is calling his fellow disciples liars.
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I'm not going to believe you.
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I may be pointing at you Malika, but you're standing in for him.
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I'm not going to believe a word you say, unless I get some solid evidence.
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I'm going to have to touch it with my hands, smell it with my nostrils, see it with my eyes, hear it with my ears.
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I'm not going to believe you.
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You're crazy.
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You're out of your mind.
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Maybe he thinks they've had a group hallucination.
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That still goes around by the way.
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There are people today, who continue to purport the idea that the entire resurrection story was concocted because of a hallucination that was had among the early Christians.
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That Jesus didn't really die, but what happened was, at some point, the group of people were so in despair over the loss of their Savior, that they created in their mind a vision, and this group vision created a memory which never really happened.
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There are several theories about Jesus' resurrection that call into question its validity.
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The swoon theory says He didn't really die, He just fainted.
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That's what the word swoon means.
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He just fainted on the cross, and then three days later, He woke up and convinced people that He rose from the dead.
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That's pretty ridiculous if you think of how badly He was beaten.
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You can't imagine Jesus being beaten, bloodied, and broken, walking into town and convincing anybody that He was a risen King.
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But also there is a theory of mass hallucination, that they just all imagined it.
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And maybe that is what Thomas thought.
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Maybe he thought, you guys are just kidding yourselves.
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You've just convinced yourself of something that ain't so.
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And unless I see it with my eyes, unless I touch it with my hands, I will never believe.
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Again, McLaren says this.
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He says, Notice how Thomas exaggerated their position and took up a far more defiant tone than any of them had done.
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He is called Doubting Thomas, but he was no doubter.
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Flat, frank, dogged disbelief and not hesitation or doubt was his attitude.
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The very form in which he puts his argument shows how he was hugging his unbelief and how he had no idea that what he asked would ever be granted.
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He had no expectation he was going to see the nail scarred hands.
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He had no expectation he was going to see the riven side.
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He didn't expect that.
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Now again, I'm not here to beat up on Thomas.
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I said from the beginning, I think he gets a bad rap.
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But I also, we can't excuse the fact that it wasn't just doubt.
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It was rank, un, I will not believe.
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He didn't say, I wonder if what you're telling me is the truth.
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He says, I'm not going to believe it until I see it.
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What's interesting though is if you, you don't have to turn there, but if you look at Luke 24, it says, When Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women told these things to the apostles, meaning they had seen the risen Jesus and they told them to the apostles.
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You know what it says in Luke 24 verse 11? It says, But these words seemed to them an idle tale and they didn't believe it.
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See, we give Thomas a hard time because he didn't believe it.
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But when the women brought the message of the risen Christ to the apostles, it said they didn't believe it either.
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Now, verse 26, Eight days later.
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By the way, if you count days, the way they counted days, they counted the day they were in as a day.
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So the first day would have been the first day.
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Eight days later would have been the next Sunday.
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It would have been the next first day of the week.
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Okay, seven plus one is eight.
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I'm pretty sure.
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I'm not good at math, but I can do that.
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Alright, so eight days later, it says the disciples were inside again.
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They were gathered again.
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By the way, I just want to stop for a moment.
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There are those out there who would tell you that we should worship on Saturday.
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They will tell you we should worship on Saturday because Saturday is the Jewish Sabbath and that's the day that God made holy and therefore that's the day we should worship.
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Understand this, when Christ came out of the tomb, we are in a new covenant with a new holy day and our holy day is Sunday, not Saturday.
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Our day is the Lord's day and from the very moment Jesus raised, the church was meeting on the first day of the week.
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We see it here.
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They met the first day He raised, eight days later, they met that same day in the evening and that became the perpetual practice of the church down to today.
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It wasn't invented by the Catholic Church.
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Don't you listen to that Constantine nonsense.
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That is absolute hogwash and I can take you through church history and prove it to you.
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Anybody who tells you that is a YouTube theologian that just don't know what they're talking about.
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You can argue with me later, I ain't got time to do it right now but I'm telling you the truth.
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Meeting on the first day of the week was the standard of the church from the beginning because that's the day that Jesus rose.
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And let me say this, we celebrate the resurrection every seven days, not once a year.
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Now I know most of you are here every week so I'm preaching to the choir but some of you, you only come on holidays.
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Guess what? Every Sunday is a holiday.
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Every Sunday is Resurrection Sunday and you ought to be here every Sunday not just once a year or twice a year.
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That's that soft rebuke.
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Take that for what it's worth.
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But it's true.
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We celebrate the resurrection every Lord's day.
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Alright, that was free.
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That didn't cost you nothing.
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That was extra.
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Alright, so eight days later, they're at church, not really, but they're gathered together.
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On Sunday evening, His disciples were there again but this time it's different because Thomas is there and although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be to you.
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Then He said to Thomas, Put your finger here.
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See My hands.
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Put out your hand.
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Place it in My side.
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Do not disbelieve but believe.
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Now, it doesn't tell us whether or not Thomas actually touched Him.
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I tend to think He did but some people think, No, He just immediately fell to His knees.
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Either way, I can't think I could help it.
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I would just want to run and grab and hold.
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Not to check for nail holes or to feel His side but to embrace the risen Lord.
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I can't imagine not.
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But the next words out of Thomas' mouth are some of the most important words in the Bible.
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HaKorios mu kai haTheos mu In the Greek that is My Lord and My God.
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The word Korios is the word translated from the word Yahweh in the Old Testament.
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And the word Theos is the word translated from the word Elohim.
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The word God.
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He calls Him My Lord and My God.
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And Jesus does not rebuke Him.
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But instead Jesus receives the words as worship because He deserves those words of worship.
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Every once in a while on a Saturday morning you might be sleeping and you'll hear a knock on the front door and you go out and you'll find yourself a couple of people that are standing there and they're holding an awake magazine or a Watchtower Bible and Tract Society magazine and they're there for one reason.
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They're there to convince you that there is one witness for the great Jehovah and that witness is the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society and the one message of that is to proclaim the true Jesus who is not a God-man but who is in fact created by God.
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He is Michael the Archangel.
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He is Michael became man but not God.
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And I want to tell you today those people are heretics and they are preaching a false gospel that will damn you to hell.
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Do not listen to them and do not accept what they are saying.
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Jesus Christ is the God-man.
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Thomas said My Lord and My God standing here in the flesh.
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Jesus Christ is God in the flesh y'all.
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May we never forget that.
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May we never doubt that.
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And may we never give that up.
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We talked some time about what are the essentials and what are the non-essentials and what are the adiaphora the things that don't really matter.
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Well right in the center of what is essential is who is Jesus Christ.
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Jesus said to him verse 29 Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.
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Let me say this to you this morning.
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Do you believe in the risen Christ? I didn't hear it again.
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Do you believe in the risen Christ? Amen.
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Blessed are you.
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Because I don't think any of you have seen him.
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If you have I want to have a talk.
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If Jesus came in your bedroom or in your closet or some guy passed across town and said Jesus met with him on his porch or something.
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Whatever.
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We haven't seen Christ.
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But we believe.
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And therefore we are more blessed than Thomas.
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You say how can we be more blessed than Thomas? Thomas literally held on to his hand embraced him fell before him saw him he was there.
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How can you be more blessed? Jesus says so.
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Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.
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Now I'm going to give you three points of application from this text and then I'm going to draw to a close.
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Three points of application.
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Number one and this might sound really crazy so if I lose you come back.
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Because my first point I didn't even put it on the screen because I was afraid somebody would see it and think I was really out there.
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My first point I hope will get your attention.
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The doubt within Thomas is understandable.
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I didn't say it was right but it is understandable.
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Because this event was unprecedented.
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This moment in history had never happened before.
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Think about all the figures around Jesus' time that claimed to be Messiah.
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There was all kinds before Jesus and after Jesus there's whole lists out there of people who claimed to be Messiah.
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And you know what? Many of them were killed because they claimed to be Messiah.
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And guess what happened when they died? Nothing.
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They stayed dead.
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When those guys died either the whole movement would just flutter out or one of their relatives would pick up the mantle and continue on until either he got killed or the movement fluttered out.
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But never once did any of those claiming to be the Messiah ever raise from the dead.
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This is absolutely unprecedented.
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And by the way from a historical point of view if you go back into the Old Testament all the important historical figures of the Old Testament none of them raised from the dead.
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Abraham died and guess where he stayed? Dead.
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Moses died.
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Guess where he stayed? Dead.
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David died.
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Guess where he stayed? Dead.
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Dead.
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D-E-D.
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Dead.
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They were all dead.
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I know that wasn't right.
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They all stayed dead.
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So here Thomas is faced with an unprecedented claim.
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Our Messiah was beaten, bloodied, hung on a tree.
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We saw his we saw his beaten body.
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We we heard him say into thy hands I commit my spirit.
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We watched him die.
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Modern people we don't watch death very much.
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In fact I think it's one of the probably one of the one of the things about our society that is not good is we hide death from ourselves.
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We hide dying people in hospital rooms and in hospices back behind closed doors and underneath comfortable clothing and we hide them away from us so we don't get to witness it.
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And then when they do die we dress them up like they're still alive and we put them in a box and present them as if they're not dead and then we we put the the bodies in a box and we bury it off away where nobody ever goes to see it anymore.
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I mean how many people even still go visit cemeteries? Not many.
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We just don't want to have to deal with it.
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But during this time people watch people die all the time.
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Not only because people died of sicknesses and disease but they would crucify people in public.
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They would watch people die.
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They would watch the life leave their body.
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If you've never seen that it's an incredible moment.
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I've been at the bedsides of several people at the moment of their death and there's nothing in the world that I can explain to you the moment of just sheer overwhelming power of watching a person breathe that last breath and they're gone.
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And these people have seen that many times.
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They've seen those men hung on the cross.
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They've seen those men gasping for breath only to finally have the weight of their own body asphyxiate their lungs and crush them under the weight of their own bodies and die.
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Thomas knew Jesus was dead.
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And he heard an incredible claim.
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The incredible claim is that man is back.
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And not only is he back but he's better than ever.
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He's not beaten bloodied and bruised no more.
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He's got holes in his hand and a hole in his side and all that is is an ID.
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That's an incredible claim y'all.
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And an incredible claim does require substantial evidence.
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If you told me I went to the store the other day and saw my cousin I'd be like okay.
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But if you say I went to the store the other day and I saw an alien I'd be like okay I had a question or two.
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Because that's an incredible claim.
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An incredible claim requires substantial evidence.
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And with that I say I understand Thomas' reluctance when he hears the words we have seen the Lord.
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And he says and understand I am not defending unbelief.
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Because the next point I want to make I hope draws this out.
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I understand Thomas' doubt but the truth before him was indisputable.
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That's the point.
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Understand this.
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That's point number two.
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Number one his doubt was understandable.
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But number two the proof before him was indisputable.
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So much so that Thomas became one of the great missionaries of the early church.
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I know we read about Paul in the New Testament.
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And we think about Paul's missionary journeys.
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And that's great.
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Paul goes west.
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And by the way we should all be thankful because most of us are from that area.
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And thankfully Paul went west.
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And he brought the gospel to Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Greece.
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Rome.
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We should be thankful.
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But Thomas brought the gospel to India.
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And the Martaman church is still in India today.
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You see he was faced with an indisputable fact.
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The risen Lord was facing him.
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He saw him.
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And he could not not believe.
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And it changed his life.
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He went from saying I will never believe to saying my Lord and my God.
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What an amazing change.
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We often talk about the change of the Apostle Paul.
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And that was a pretty great change too.
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But the change of Thomas is amazing as well.
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Third and finally.
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The facts facing us are equally indisputable.
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So what did I just say? Thomas' doubt was understandable.
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But the facts facing him were indisputable.
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And number three.
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The facts facing us equally indisputable.
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Because you might say to yourself at some point you know what? I wish I had the experience of old Thomas.
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I wish I could see Jesus and put my finger in his hand and my hand in his side.
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Let me tell you this.
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The reality is the evidence for the risen Christ that we have today is equally as compelling as anything that he had.
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Andy said it this morning.
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It's true.
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We don't have a blind faith.
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We have faith in the fact that Jesus rose from the dead.
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And there is more evidence that Jesus rose from the dead than any other historical event of that time frame even comes close to having.
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In fact I have a friend and some of you know him.
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Rich Suplita is a former atheist.
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In fact he has a website called askaformeratheist.com That's his website.
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He goes on to the University of Georgia campus and he preaches to the students there.
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What's interesting is he used to be a professor at that university.
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He was a professor of neuroscience at the University of Georgia.
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He is now an evangelist on the campus at the University of Georgia and he goes and proclaims the risen Jesus to those students when he once was the head of the atheist club.
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God changed his life.
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Changed his heart.
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He went from being the head of the atheist club to the guy who is preaching Jesus on the corner of the college square.
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What an amazing story.
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But this is one of the things he has.
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He has a little billboard that he puts up right beside him when he is preaching and it has an acronym on it.
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I want to share it with you because I thought it was really good.
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He said this is why we believe in the resurrection.
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The acronym is D-E-A-R.
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D like deer.
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First D, died by crucifixion.
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Jesus wasn't partly dead.
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He wasn't half dead.
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He wasn't almost dead.
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He was totally dead.
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Death by crucifixion is a real death and they knew what they were doing y'all.
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They were really good at killing folk.
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And they killed Jesus on the cross.
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Number two, the E, the empty tomb.
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Three days after Jesus died on that cross everybody saw him go into the tomb.
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The women knew where he was.
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The Pharisees knew where he was.
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Even Pilate knew where he was because he sent a band of soldiers there to watch over the tomb and to put a seal on it.
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But three days later that tomb was empty and guess what they couldn't do when Jesus rose from the dead.
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They couldn't produce a body.
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You know all it would have taken to prove that the whole thing was a farce for them to carry out the dead body of Jesus and say look, he's still dead.
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He's not risen.
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But they couldn't do that because there was an empty tomb in Jerusalem.
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Number three, the A, the appearances after the crucifixion.
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Jesus appeared to over 500 people many of which went to their deaths proclaiming the risen Jesus.
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In fact, I've said this many times before.
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They didn't go proclaiming they thought Jesus was alive.
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They went proclaiming they knew he was alive because they saw him with their own eyes.
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They heard him with their own ears.
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They've touched him with their own hands.
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And they were willing to be dipped in pitch and burned in Nero's garden.
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They were willing to be fed to lions.
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They were willing to be stoned to death.
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They were willing to have their heads cut off to say this, Jesus is Lord.
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Because the demand was Caesar is Lord.
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No, Caesar is not Lord.
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Jesus is Lord.
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And they went to their deaths appearing to over 500 people and the R.
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This last one we often don't think about but it ought to be considered.
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The rise of Christianity over three continents in less than a century.
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The gospel had risen and was flourishing even in the midst of persecution.
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You realize the first 300 years of the church Christianity was religio elicita.
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That means it was an illegal religion.
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And yet it flourished.
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Beloved, you have no reason to deny the gospel.
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You have no reason to deny Jesus is risen.
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In fact, years ago there was a lawyer.
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His name was Lionel Lucu.
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What a cool name.
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Lionel Lucu I think is how you say it.
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He's in the Guinness Book of World Records.
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Having the most successful cases of any lawyer he tried 245 murder cases and every one of them and I'm sorry he defended 245 murder cases and won every one of them.
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In fact, when they created the show Perry Mason remember Perry Mason is supposed to be this great lawyer.
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You know Perry Mason they made him lose a case every 70 shows because they said nobody would believe a guy wins all the time.
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Lionel Lucu did.
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He won 245.
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He's in the Guinness Book of World Records and he took toward the end of his life he said you know what I'm going to do I'm going to prove Christianity is fake.
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And he began to try to disprove the resurrection.
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And this is a quote what he said.
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Because after he tried to prove it wrong he ended up becoming a Christian.
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This is what he says.
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He says I have spent more than 42 years as a defense trial lawyer in many parts of the world and I say unequivocally unequivocally the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ is so overwhelming that it compels acceptance by proof which leaves absolutely no room for doubt.
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So beloved if you're here today and you say I just don't know.
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You ain't facing the facts.
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You ain't facing the truth.
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The Bible says actually what you're doing is you're suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.
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John Locke 18th century British philosopher said this he said our Savior's resurrection is truly of great importance in Christianity so great that his being or not being the Messiah stands or falls on it.
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I'll tell you this he's right and he's not the first one to think of that.
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Paul said that.
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Paul said if Jesus is not raised we of all men are most to be pitied.
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So I tell you today beloved you either believe Jesus is raised or you're not a Christian.
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You either believe Jesus is raised or you're not saved.
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Because there's one gospel and the gospel is the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ and you can't have one without the other.
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So I hope that you've come in today believing the Lord Jesus Christ and if you have not I appeal to you today repent of your sin and trust in him.
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Because one thing he is alive and he lives forevermore to make intercession for those who believe in him.
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Let me tell you this you have no reason to walk away in disbelief today other than your own obstinate skeptical unbelieving heart.
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We mentioned earlier and I can't do it like Brother Smith did it so that he is risen.
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I don't know what you said earlier so I have to get with you later.
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He was very fancy.
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I appreciate fancy though I'm going to find out.
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I'm going to do it next year.
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But that statement he is risen and the refrain he is risen indeed that is an ancient phrase.
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It actually goes back to the Byzantine and Eastern Church and it was actually based on something that Mary Magdalene supposedly said before Emperor Tiberius when she was brought before him and gave a testimony and her testimony was just this Christ is risen.
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Because that is our testimony.
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That is it.
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If anybody wants to know a reason for the hope that is within you it is this He is risen.
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He is risen indeed.
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So let me say this to you as I close.
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When times of wavering faith may come when shadows of doubt loom in your soul and when seeds of uncertainty are sown by the world the flesh and the devil let us all with one accord say to ourselves and to the world He is risen indeed.
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And rest in that promise and in that fact.
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Let's pray.
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Father I thank you for your word I thank you for your truth I thank you even for Thomas Lord You gave Thomas a pastoral response to his unbelief when you extended your hand and you said see this my hand that it is I Lord what a wonderful thing you do when you condescend to us and even in our unbelief you treat us with loving care as a father.
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So Lord I pray today right now first and foremost I pray for the believer in this room Lord I pray that they would be encouraged in their faith I pray that from Friday night to even now Lord every message that has been preached Lord that they would come together in their minds and confirm in them a reminder that Jesus is the spotless Lamb of God who gave himself for sins that he was raised on the third day and he lives forever more to make intercession for his people and we have every reason to believe that fact.