Evidence For The Resurrection Of Jesus Christ

Sermon Transcript

Is this passage right here true? "You, Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness."

Yes. Then, where was he on September 10th? So we were driving in that morning. Charlie got some footage an hour before we were supposed to be there, and there were people everywhere, and I said to him Charlie, I don't like this place. There are too many buildings And he just shrugged it off because he was brave and He knew he had to extend himself to a certain extent in order to reach people because you can't Completely insulate yourself from people if you're gonna love them love is always a risk as you know You can get hurt by extending yourself So we got there the crowds were crazy. He wasn't there to give a speech. He was there to answer questions. There had to be five or six thousand people all around us, and he started flipping hats. And somebody gave me a row of hats, so he and I are flipping hats. Two nights before this, we went on one of our evening walks.

I would go to Phoenix. I went to Phoenix four times this past summer to help Charlie with Christian apologetics, evidence for the faith, how we could answer questions better, and after we'd meet during the day, he'd say hey, why don't we go on a walk? We'll just talk And so September Eighth Monday night we're walking through the streets of Phoenix with a 300 pound armed bodyguard behind us And two of the issues Charlie wanted to talk about that night Were the resurrection and also how could he get His generation to embrace marriage and family again, I don't know if you've seen the surveys But when it came to Trump voters a year ago, the number one goal of young men who voted for Trump was to get married. The number five or so goal of women who voted for Trump was to get married. The number 13 or 12, the number 12 goal out of 13 for Harris women was to get married. It seemed like men wanted to get married, and the women didn't. And that night, Charlie was struggling, "How could I, as a man, convince women they ought to get married?" We didn't have an answer that night. We talked about that for at least half an hour.

Ironically, through this tragedy, we may have discovered someone who might be able to inspire women to get married. And that's his wife, Erica Kirk, who, as you saw at the memorial service, did only what a true Christian could do, and that is forgive her husband's killer. So our ministry put together a 12-minute video that had to do with Charlie talking about the gospel and also about family. I'm not going to show you the whole thing, just a few minutes. Here it is.

What would you actually tell me if I had 30 seconds left to win? Boy, in 30 seconds, you're about to meet eternal judgment. And there's only one way that you can get bailed out of that. It's not all the good things you did or the moral scorecard. It's whether or not you have Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. And so, you have 10 seconds left to die in the gunshot wound. You have a question: Who is Jesus Christ? And the answer to that singular question, who is Jesus Christ, is the most important question for everyone in the audience. Not all the money you have, not all the good stuff you do, it is who is Jesus Christ? You might say, oh, Jesus was, you know, a tell-all of good tales, or Jesus was a good person, " or " Jesus was a historical figure. Now that's going to fly off. It's whether or not you repent and you ask Christ to come in as your Lord and Savior. That's the only thing that will save you from the eternal. - He is risen. - He is risen indeed, Bill. - Why do we say that in the present tense? - He is risen. It is a constant truth in all. - He is risen. I always noticed that it was interesting to me. - That's a really important question. - It is. Tell me. - Because the fact that he is risen transcends time. It's not just the present sense. It's that of all time that promises to be accessible to all. And so it's a proclamation to all people. Because we said, hey, he was risen. It's just merely a historical event. It almost underplays the metaphysics of it.

There's a reason why the dress for the man is the same at a wedding and a funeral. Because you're saying goodbye to your previous self. The woman is the icon, the symbol of beauty, almost always in all white, right? Ascented. The man is usually in black and white, like he's attempting somebody's death, 'cause it is his death. No, but think about it. It's the death of the bachelor mindset. It's the death of promiscuity. It's the death of the wandering eye. It's the death of immoral behavior. It's the death of texting girls casually. It's the death of I get to do what I want to do. It's the death of just going to the bar with friends. It's the death of acting like an infant. It's the death of playing video games till 1 AM. And it's the birth of a man.

Number one, God must always come first from your spiritual disciplines. Honor the Sabbaths and turn off your phone for one day a week. Don't too make church a good Bible-based church. We have many pastors here that teach the word of God and also understand that it's external things of the flesh, like alcohol, corn, or drugs, or other temptations that will take down your marriage. You, as the husband, must constantly be on guard of things and also over shopping, overindulgence, too much credit cards, idolatry, and vacations. You must guard the family from those things from seeping in. So, understand the order. It's God, and then the marriage and those things will bless your marriage from the devil, who tries. You can see the rest of that on our YouTube channel.

The people who malign Charlie don't know Charlie. They didn't do their research on Charlie. We lost a great hero of the faith. So where was God that day? Why did God spare Trump and not Kirk? Charlie and I have a mutual friend, his name is James Lindsay. He's an atheist now, moving toward agnosticism. He is a very good scholar on what's called critical theory. And he is conservative politically, and he knows that critical theory is a problem. It's just, in many cases, new racism trying to defeat old racism. Anyway, Charlie has been working on James to become a Christian. And at one point, James was looking at the history of the 20th century where atheistic regimes killed about 100 million people, between Mao and Stalin and Paul Pot. The greatest evil ever done in history is done by atheist regimes. And James texted Charlie, and he said, "I'm starting to believe in Satan because of all the evil that I'm seeing, Charlie texted him back, "If Satan, then God."

What's he saying here? Does evil disprove God? No. In fact, a year ago, here we went through this. We did a whole presentation on how evil does not disprove God. In fact, evil shows God does exist because nothing would be evil unless there was a standard of good, and there is no objective standard of good unless God exists. You see, evil doesn't exist on its own. Evil is a lack and a good thing. Evil is like cancer. If you take all the cancer out of a good body, you've got a better body. But what happens if you take all the body out of the cancer? You've got nothing. Cancer needs a good body in which to live. Evil is like rust in a car. If you take all the rust out of a car, you've got a better car. What happens if you take all the car out of the rust? You've got a pinto. You've got to be old enough to know that one. It can't exist on its own. Evil is a lack in a good thing. So if evil exists, God exists. And what Charlie was doing was recollecting to C.S. Lewis who pointed this out in the book, "Mere Christianity."

Early on in his life, Lewis was an atheist because he went through World War I. His best friend was killed in World War I, and he said there can't be a good God's good, 'cause there's too much unjustice or injustice in the world. And then one day Lewis had an epiphany. He realized there can't be injustice unless there's justice, and there can't be justice unless God exists. So he actually wrote this in the book, "Mere Christianity." He said, "As an atheist, my argument against God was that the universe seems so cruel and unjust, But how would I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? You see, you wouldn't know what a crooked line was unless you knew what a straight line was. You wouldn't know what injustice was unless you knew what justice was. But justice can only exist in an objective sense if God exists. So evil doesn't disprove God. Evil may prove there's a devil out there, But it can't disprove God.

By the way, I don't know if you've noticed. But Jesus and elsewhere in the Bible described Satan as a murderer, a liar, an accuser, and a slanderer. You know four months ago we had a murder. What have we had since then? Lies, accusations, and slander. Yes, I'm talking about Candace Owens and others who are accusing innocent people through lies, slander, all sorts of accusations without evidence. That's the work of the devil, ladies and gentlemen. If you don't see this as spiritual warfare, you're blind.

So evil does not disprove God. It shows God does exist. Why does God allow evil? You know, sometimes I get the question, why didn't God stop the killer? Why doesn't God stop Satan? And my answer normally is, I could ask that same question, why doesn't God stop you? Why doesn't God stop me? I mean, ladies and gentlemen, if God were to stop evil at midnight tonight, would you still be alive at 12.01? No, I wouldn't be. You notice we're always complaining about somebody else doing evil, never ourselves. "God, why don't you stop him? God, why don't you stop her? God, why don't you stop the shooter? God, why don't you stop Hitler? God, why don't you..." We'd be like robots. If God doesn't allow us to make free choices, then you can't even have love, because you can't have love without free choice. So God gives us free will so we can love. The problem is we can also do evil with it.

What's God's solution to it? Well, we covered this all last year, so I'm not going to go through it all, but I'm just going to highlight a couple of things. And the one thing I want to highlight is not only does evil often bring forth good in character, you notice that sometimes you only look up when you're on your back, sometimes you only ask for God's help when you really need it, sometimes you develop character when you go through pain and suffering, and the Bible even talks about this in several places, but But not only that, sometimes inexplicable evil causes us to go, "I can't see how God can bring any good from this." And I struggled with this for a long time until I did some research on it, and I discovered this insight that helped me a lot. Maybe it will help you. If this life is only from conception to death, yeah, there's a lot of evil that occurs that doesn't appear to have any good coming from it. Seems like it's gratuitous, it just happens. Why would God allow it to happen? But what if life doesn't end right there? What if life actually continues into eternity? Then there may be good things that happen even from what appear to be inexplicable evil things that we can't see any good coming from.

And here's the insight that helped me in thinking about this. Have you guys heard of something called the ripple effect? You know what the ripple effect is? Every single event ripples forward to affect trillions of other events. The ripple effect is everywhere. The ripple effect is in all of our lives. You wouldn't exist without the ripple effect. Neither would I. We wouldn't be here. I mean, just think in your own genealogy, for example. For you to even be alive today, your parents had to meet. Their parents had to meet. Their parents had to meet. You get the idea. Do you see all these ripples? So every event ripples forward to affect other events. And just because we can't see any good coming from this particular event doesn't mean that no good comes from it. I can't keep track of all the ripples, but a God outside of time can. Look, I know very little of the past, very little of the present. I know nothing of the future except what God tells me. How could I trace all the ripples that occur from any event? I can't. So I can trust God even when I can't see the outcome. In fact, if I could see the outcome, would I need to trust God? No. If I had perfect foreknowledge, I wouldn't need to trust God on anything.

And by the way, there are examples of the ripple effect in the scriptures. You know about Joseph and his brothers, I'm sure Pastor John has preached through Genesis, and Joseph was sold into slavery by one of his brothers, Judah, by the way, Judah, no extra charge for this. Judah, the fourth son. Who is an ancestor of whom? Jesus. This is where we get the term "Jew" from. He's from the tribe of Judah. He's the guy who sells his brother Joseph into slavery for what? Twenty shekels of silver. That was the going price of a slave at that time. The code of Hammurabi tells us that. Fast forward, forward for you this way. Fast forward to Jesus. Who betrays Jesus for 30 shekels of silver? Judas, inflation. Right? By the way, there are parallels between the life of Joseph and the life of Jesus, just like there are parallels between Isaac and Moses, and Jonah and David and Daniel. All of these Old Testament heroes all have parallels to the life of Jesus. It's called typology.

Well, think about Joseph for a second. Joseph was sold into slavery by Judah. Jesus is sold into slavery by Judas. Do you know how the Greek Old Testament, called the Septuagint, translates Judah, Judas? Oh, and by the way, Joseph is falsely accused, and he's in prison, and he's got what, the cupbearer and the baker next to him, the bread and the wine. And one of them is let go. The other one is impaled on a pole. Does this make you think of anything? Jesus is on a cross, and he's got two criminals next to him. One is saved, and the other isn't. There are so many parallels. In any event, you know what happens with Joseph. He's sold into slavery. He's treated horribly. He's falsely accused. Then he rises to power in Egypt after interpreting a dream properly, and his own family flees Israel to come to Egypt to escape a famine. And as soon as Joseph sees him, what does he say to him? You dirty rats, you're gonna pay for what you did to me. No, he doesn't say that. The whole story ends this way. You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. Here you see the ripple effect in one life. The evil that his brothers did to Joseph rippled forward to actually help them later. Most of the time, you don't see the ripple effect. Here you do. In fact, while respecting free choice, God can bring good from evil. And a lot of times you can't see it, but God can.

Has there been any good that has come from Charlie's assassination? It hasn't been a ripple; it's been a tsunami. Did we ever think we would see a memorial service where the President of the United States on down would preach the Gospel to about 200,000 people on the ground and 100 million people watching online? I just learned that I was just with my friends at TPUSA recently, as of November, do you know how many people have seen that memorial service, 1.2 billion? And people are still watching it. Bible sales are up. I'm getting emails from people all over the world. I got saved because of Charlie Kirk. I was an atheist. I got one from Sweden. I was an atheist until I saw what happened to Charlie Kirk. I'm a Christian now. We were here today, and we were to say, "Charlie, for 100 people to be saved, you have to give up your life." He'd go, "Sign me up. That's what my life's about anyway." Well, it's a lot more than 100, ladies and gentlemen. Millions are being saved because of what happened to Charlie Kirk.

Perhaps one of the most profound things ever said on evil was actually said by a Roman Catholic priest at Notre Dame about 150 years ago, talking about the ripple effect. And here's often the way this problem is put. If God is all-loving and all-powerful, how come He doesn't stop evil? I mean, is it because He's not all-loving? He doesn't want to stop evil, or is it because He's not all-powerful that He can't? What people, when they say this, miss out on is that they're leaving out another attribute of God. Yes, God is all-loving and all-powerful, but He's also all-wise. Maybe He allows evil because the ripple effect is going to bring forth the greater good. And this Roman Catholic priest said this. He said, "If God would concede me His power for 24 hours, you would see how many changes I would make in the world, but if He gave me His wisdom too, I would believe things as they are. Now we're to fight evil with all of our heart, but we leave the results to God. God can bring good even from the worst evil, because He knows what we don't know. He can see what we can't see. And then let me put it this way. Any God who is big enough to be mad at is big enough to have reasons you don't know about. So if you're You're mad at God because, oh, God didn't do something the way you wanted him to do it, or you experienced some unjust treatment, and you're saying, "God, you're responsible for this, and you should have stopped it." Just remember, Jesus could have said the same thing to him. The only truly innocent person in the history of the world was Jesus, not any of us. And look what happened to him.

In fact, Peter Kreft said something very profound. He teaches at Boston College about the purpose of life. You know, in America, we think life is just about being happy all the time and being comfortable. Here's what Kreft said. "The point of our lives is not comfort, security, or even happiness, but training. "Not fulfillment, but preparation. "This world is a lousy home, but it's a fine gymnasium. Yeah, if you're going through difficulty, maybe it's for your good or somebody else's. Romans 8.28 says, "We know that all things work together for good." Notice it doesn't say all things are good. The murder of Charlie was not good. "That all things work together for good to those that love God and are called according to His purpose, to be conformed to the image of the Son," it goes on to say. God's purpose for you and me is to be conformed to the image of His Son, not to get you a new Cadillac. Or is Cadillac a big deal anymore? Probably not. Not to get you a new Mercedes! So where was God that day?

What's God's solution to the problem of evil? God's solution is that God suffered Himself. Did you realize that Christianity is the answer to the problem of evil? That if we had never sinned, there would be no need for Jesus to come to earth. The entire reason Jesus came to earth was to pay for our sins, to forgive us, and give us his righteousness. That's why he came. If we had never sinned, he wouldn't have had to come. The answer to the problem of evil is Christianity. And he was the truly only innocent person in history. And he was treated horribly. Do we think we deserve more than Jesus or better than Jesus? Is that what we're saying? His pain can be our gain. Can be. Because you don't have to accept what he's done. You can go your own way if you want.

But let me point something out about our mindset here in America that needs to be corrected. We think life's all about us. Do you realize that everyone you love will die? Everything you build will crumble. Everything you say will be forgotten. Everything you do will come to nothing. You and your identity will die and vanish unless the resurrection is true. If there is no resurrection, nothing ultimately matters. We're all just gonna die and become worm food. It doesn't matter if you live like Hitler or you live like Mother Teresa. It doesn't matter unless there's a resurrection. So I wanna spend a little bit of time on the resurrection. We know that evil doesn't disprove God, that Christianity is the answer to the problem of evil. And even if we can't figure out every good it can come from evil, or God allows certain things and not others. Doesn't mean he has no reason; he has reasons, we just can't see them all the time. In fact, what does Job say at the end of the book of Job, after he mouse off to God? After God says, "You don't even know how the natural world works, Job. You're going to lecture me on the moral world, how the moral universe works?" And Job finally says, "I repent in dust and ashes." Yeah, The same God we talked about this morning that created stars equivalent to sand grains on 100,000 earths. That God that has attributes who are all infinite, he has knowledge that we don't have. He has reasons that we don't know. And so we trust him.

So what evidence do we have that the resurrection is true? I'm just gonna briefly go through three. We have a chapter, and I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist, called the top ten reasons we know the New Testament writers told the truth. I'm just gonna briefly go through three of them and just highlight, not give you all the data. First of all, there are embarrassing stories in the text that they never would have invented. You don't invent embarrassing things that really make you look bad. I'll explain that in a minute. Secondly, there are eyewitness details. They prove they were there. It's not a made-up story. And then finally, they experienced excruciating deaths. They died for this when they could have saved themselves by saying, "Look, it never happened."

All right, now, as we dive into this, we have to realize, as we talked about this morning, that there's very good evidence that God exists. And so you should be able to believe in a resurrection. In today's world, people don't believe in miracles. They say, "Oh, no, miracles can't occur." Ladies and gentlemen, what's the greatest miracle in the Bible? No, it's not salvation, it's not the resurrection. The greatest miracle in the Bible is the first verse. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. If that verse is true, every other verse in the Bible is at least possible. I mean, if God created the whole universe out of nothing, can he do whatever he wants that's not logically impossible inside the universe? Of course, we talked about it this morning. Even the atheists are admitting that Genesis 1/1 appears to be true. They don't think it's God, but as I mentioned this morning, who else could it be that created space-time and matter out of nothing? So if Genesis 1/1 is true and atheists are admitting the data for that, then resurrections are possible. Our only question now is, did this resurrection really occur?

And let's start with the first one, embarrassing stories. They didn't invent this. embarrassing stories. Historians know that if there's something embarrassing to the author or authors, it's probably true. Why would it be true? Because you're not going to invent embarrassing stories about yourself. In other words, you won't lie to make yourself look bad. You might lie to make yourself look good. In fact, let me ask you guys a question. How many people in here have ever lied to make yourself look good? If you don't have your hand up right now, you're a lion to make yourself look good. And it's not working, we know you're a lion. Alright, how many people in here have ever lied to make yourself look bad? You don't do that. You will lie to make yourself look good; you won't lie to make yourself look bad. Well, the New Testament writers, it's true, the Old Testament, we don't have time for the Old Testament, the New Testament writers have filled the New Testament with embarrassing details, embarrassing stories that make them look bad. They never would have invented this; that's why we call this the Doh Factor. In fact, Apologist Wes Huff calls the disciples the Doh Cyples, because they do such stupid things that make them look bad.

For example, at one point, Jesus calls Peter their leader, Satan. Do you think they invented this? Do you think Mark, who wrote this down at one point, said to Peter, "Hey Pete, I'm gonna make this a real interesting story. I'm gonna have the Lord call you Satan." What do you think Peter would have said? Have him call you Satan. (congregation laughing) Look, I'm the leader here; this doesn't look good. And then Peter says, "Lord, I'll never deny you." What does he wind up doing? He denies him three times. And then at the crucifixion, all the disciples, with the exception of one, they all run away. This is like a Monty Python movie. Run away! They all run away. And who are the brave ones? The women! The women are the brave ones! Now, who wrote the New Testament documents down? Men. Now what, man? Is going to invent that he was hiding for fear of the Jews while the women went down to discover the amplitude. Would any man in here invent that? No, I mean, if I were inventing it, I'd make myself look good, wouldn't you? I'd say, look, we marched right down there, and we overpowered that elite Roman guard. Yeah, that sounds good. What do you think? Then, John said to the elite Roman guards, get out, Peter roundhouse kicked them. Thomas said, "We'll be back." No doubt. Some of you will get that tomorrow. And then we marched right down to the tomb, and we saw Jesus, who congratulated us on our great faith. And then we went and comforted the trembling women. I would never say it was Mr. Sissy Pants, why the women went down and discovered the epitome, but that's what the text says.

And oh, by the way, why would you never have the women be the first witnesses in that culture? Forget about the fact that it was embarrassing to men, it was, but it's also embarrassing to say they're the first women or the first witnesses at all. Why? Yes, because a woman's testimony was not considered on par with that of a man. So if you're making up the New Testament story, you'd only have the men be the first witnesses. But all four gospels say the women were the first witnesses. As embarrassing as it was, in fact, one of their prime witnesses was a formerly demon-possessed woman. Wow, what a credible witness you got there, all right? They're not making this up! In fact, I had a woman come up to me once, and she said, "Frank, I know why Jesus appeared to the women first." And I said, "Why?" And she said, "Because he wanted to get the story out." I said, "That is an excellent point." I hadn't thought of that.

'Cause ladies, when your man comes home from work, does he say much? There could have been a nuclear explosion down at the plant. He's not gonna tell you. You'll see it on the news before you hear it from him. You'll be watching the news, going, "Hey, hon, what happened?" Oh yeah, forgot to tell you. The nuke blew up. I've been hot for three days. What's for dinner? He's not gonna tell you. You think that's bad. We were at the University of Cincinnati a couple of years ago, and a guy after the seminar came up to me and he said, "Oh yeah? "My friend was on an airplane, a private airplane, just he and the pilot, "and in the middle of the flight, the pilot died." And my friend did not know how to land the plane. So just like in the movies, the tower talked him down. And when he went home that night, his wife said, "How was your day, dear?" And he said, "Same old, same old."

And then the disciples. What do they do at the end of Matthew 19? This is, I'm sorry, Matthew 28. And 28, 19, this is the Great Commission. They're giving, Jesus is, takes his disciples up on the mountain, he's given them the Great Commission. And it says right there as he's saying, go therefore, make disciples of all nations. Notice he doesn't say make believers. It says make disciples. He says, or it says, Matthew says, of the disciples there, in verse 17, It says, 'Some believed, but some doubted." What? He's standing resurrected right in front of them. And they're doubting? It's like, they're going, "You see that guy over there?" Yeah. That guy over there is Jesus. Oh no, it can't be Jesus. He was just killed not long ago. No, I'm telling you it's Jesus. Do you know that they killed him? That he's dead right now? No, no, that's Jesus. He rose from the dead. He can't be alive. The Romans killed him. I'm telling you it's Jesus. It can't be. It is. How do you know? The women told me.

They're not making this up. There are even embarrassing details about Jesus. He's considered out of his mind by his own family, who want to seize him and take him home. This is Mark chapter three. His family thinks he's nuts. His own brothers don't believe in him. That's embarrassing. He's called a drunkard. He's called a madman. He's called demon-possessed. You think they invented all this stuff? He has his feet wiped with the hair of a prostitute. Which easily can be seen as a sexual advance. And oh, by the way, you know there are two prostitutes in Jesus's bloodline. Who are they? Rahab and Tamar. Tamar actually slept with Judah who was her father-in-law. Who's in the bloodline? This is like real salacious stuff. And you know why? Because it's true. They're not trying to sugarcoat it. In fact, there are a lot of shady people in the bloodline of the Messiah. In addition to Judah, who else? Tamar, as I mentioned. David, David, a man after God's own heart. Yeah, but he's a liar, adulterer, and a murderer. Gee, I guess there's hope for the rest of us then. There are all these shady people in the bloodline. Because they're just telling the truth. They're not sugarcoating anything.

We just got back from a trip to Egypt. You know, when you go to Egypt, you see these great monuments. You know what these monuments are? They're all propaganda monuments about how great the current Pharaoh is. And how much better he is than the previous Pharaoh. They don't record anything negative. It's all propaganda. You don't see that. in the Jewish history. In fact, Dennis Prager, who's a conservative Jewish man, not a Christian, said this, "One reason I know the Old Testament is true "is because no people group would ever invent "such an embarrassing history of themselves." And I would say to Dennis, you're right, Dennis, but if embarrassing details work for the Old Testament, they also ought to work for the New Testament 'cause nobody's making this stuff up. It's too embarrassing. There's a lot more in the book on that, but we're running out of time.

Let's do the second one. They were there. In the book, I don't have enough faith to be an atheist. There are 84 details in the book of Acts that have been confirmed. There are 59 details in the Gospel of John that have been confirmed. They're all in the book; I don't have time to get into it. I just want to show you something that has come to light recently, that seven people associated with the crucifixion of Jesus have all been discovered in archaeology. Herod has been discovered in archaeology through coins. He's also mentioned a lot by Josephus, the Jewish historian who lived in the first century. Simon of Cyrene has been discovered. Who's Simon of Cyrene? He's the guy who carried Jesus's cross. You know, from about 20 BC to 70 AD, the Jews would, after somebody died, about a year later, they'd go into the tomb, take the bones out, and put them in a limestone box known as an oshoary. That's an oshoary right there. It's only about this big. Maybe like that. They put the bones in there 'cause they believed in a bodily resurrection. This oshoary was discovered, and this is an oshoary of Simon's son. I think his name is Alexander, and it says Alexander, son of Simon of Cyrene. Now what's Cyrene? Irene is what we call modern-day Libya. How many Jews or how many Libyans or whoever do you think existed in Jerusalem by the name of Simon who had a son named Alexander? Probably not many. Anyway, this burial box has been discovered.

Also, Pilate has been discovered in many archaeological discoveries, including this one in the coastal town of Caesarea Maritime. He's also been discovered in coins, and he's been discovered in seals; he's mentioned by Josephus. Caiaphas Aschewary, who's Caiaphas? The high priest who sentenced Jesus to die. Look how ornate Caiaphas Aschewary is compared to Alexander, the son of Simon. This is just like a common person's Aschewary. This is, I'm a big deal. Look how ornate that is. That was discovered in 1990. Inside, they found the bones of a 60-year-old man in his family. This is the guy who sent Jesus to die. We have his bones. Also, Peter has been found in archaeology. He's found in graffiti in his house, probably his house in Capernaum, where Jesus spent a lot of his time, and so did Peter. Also in the town of Bethsaida, we think we've discovered Peter. He's also found underneath the Vatican from the second century. Peter is discovered in many areas.

Anas, the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who also was at the trial of Jesus, says, "His tomb has been discovered." I was just in this tomb about two months ago. It was guarded by a camel. It was. There was a camel. This is on the south side of Jerusalem, not far from the city of David. Nobody, hardly anybody, knows about this tomb. And whoever owns the land had a camel, so we're out there going, "We think that's Anas' tomb. How do we get in?" So our archaeologist, Ellie Shukron, who discovered the pool of Siloam and excavated most of the city of David, went by that mornin,g and he said, "I think I know where it is, but there's a camel out there. I don't know if we can get in." So a little bit later, about lunchtime, we went back over there, and the camel was up on the hill above, so we went, "That was our chance." So we run through a whole bunch of camel dung and go into this tomb. It's amazing. I don't have time to show it to you now, but we're going to put some video out soon. In fact, Ellie's going to tell the Israeli authorities because this tomb covered with camel dung is also to junk in the tomb as well. This tomb was the tomb of the top guy in Jerusalem religiously, and it's covered in camel dung.

About a half mile, three-quarters of a mile from there. The tomb of Jesus has a church built upon it called the church of the Holy Sepulchre. Thousands, probably millions of people go there a year. Nobody goes to Anise's tomb. Everybody goes to Jesus's tomb. Why? Because Jesus rose from the dead. Anise is still dead. Also, Jesus has been found in archaeology. His brother James. That ashoary was discovered on the antiquities market about 15 years ago. People thought it was a forgery. It went to trial because it's illegal to invent antiquities and to say that they're genuine when they're not. It went to trial, it went through trial, and the guy was exonerated. This is a real ashoary from the first century, and on the side of it, it said, "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus." You've got seven people associated with the crucifixion of Jesus found in archaeology. It's not a made-up story.

Finally, they died excruciating deaths. It's really important to understand that the people who wrote down what we call the New Testament were Jews. And they started with the idea that not one guy would rise from the dead and save the world. They didn't think anybody could claim to be God. That was blasphemy. But somehow they ended by claiming a man did rise from the dead, did claim to be God, and we're going to go to our deaths for this new religion. Why would these Jews do this? They already thought they were God's chosen people. In fact, think about this. Think about the apostles' beliefs and practices before and after the resurrection. There was a stark change in their behavior and their beliefs in the first century. They went from animal sacrifices, they'd been slaying lambs to Yahweh for hundreds of years, and suddenly, when Christ comes, they go, "We don't need to slay these lambs anymore because these lambs are just symbols of the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Here he is. Before they believed in the binding law of Moses, afterwards Christ's life fulfilled the binding law of Moses. Before they believed in strict monotheism, afterwards they believed in a trinity, three persons in one divine essence. Yes, the trinity you can see in the Old Testament, but it's much clearer in the New. Before they believed in the Sabbath, in fact, they thought they could be stoned for not and the Sabbath, afterwards they're worshiping on Sunday. Because that's the day he rose, Jesus rose. Before they believed in a conquering Messiah, afterwards a sacrificial Messiah. And before they believed in circumcision, afterwards they believed in baptism and communion. Now, let's go back to embarrassing for just a second, ladies and gentlemen.

If you're starting a new religion, or any religion, would anybody in here pick this as the sign of admission? Hey, what do I gotta do to join your group? What? No, I'm out. Who's gonna make this up? Nobody's making this up. Now, ladies and gentlemen, what would have caused these pious Jews who thought they were God's chosen people to abandon everything on the left and adopt everything on the right virtually overnight? The only thing I can think of is what psychologists call an impact event. What's an impact event? An impact event is an event that is so dramatic in your life that it can cause you to change direction 180 degrees just like that. Some impact events are so dramatic that, although you might not remember what you had for breakfast this morning, you'll remember an impact event that happened 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, or 60 years ago if you're old enough. In fact, there are probably only a few of you in this room that could answer this question, but I'm gonna ask it anyway. If you can remember where you were and what you were doing on November 22nd, 1963, raise your hand and hold it up high. Ladies and gentlemen, you see these people with their hands up? These people are very old. November 22nd, 1963, is my earliest memory. I was two years old in two days. Yes, I'm 64 years old now. I know, I know, I don't look a day over 63. In fact, when I hit 50, my wife was very encouraged, and she said, "Honey, you're gonna live to 100." I said, "How do you know?" She said, "Because you look half dead already." Anyway, I'm two years old in two days, and my mother is sitting on an ottoman in front of a black and white TV weeping uncontrollably. Mom, what's the matter? They killed the president. President Kennedy was assassinated that day. I can still see my mother right now in my mind when she was 26 years old, sitting on that ottoman. In a week, she's going to be 88. But I can remember her when she was 26. It was an impact event because it shocked me to see her crying like that. I don't remember anything before that and very little after that.

Where were you when the second plane hit the tower? Where were you when Trump was shot? Where were you when you heard Charlie Kirk had been shot? I was 25 feet from looking at him. You think I'm going to ever forget that? I'll never forget when we got him to the hospital. seemed like they weren't ready for us. But once the team started to descend on them, they got a heartbeat. He said, "Maybe they're so..." But after they took them in the OR, maybe 20 minutes later, the doctor came out, kind of standing in the hallway, and the doctor just said, "He's dead." Didn't say I'm sorry. Didn't say I tried everything with the... With the tact of a brick, he just said, "He's dead. "I can't get that out of my mind." He's dead, I gotta talk to Erica. Mikey's on the phone with JD Vance. I'll tell you what JD said. Impact event: Why, nine days later, did over 200,000 people show up in Phoenix? Impact event: Why did people who had no interest in God suddenly become Christians? impact event. Do you think a resurrection would have been an impact event? Do you think if Jesus really did come out of that tomb and then teach people and do miracles for 40 days, that that would have changed those Jewish believers in Yahweh into now suddenly Christian followers of Yahweh and Jesus? How else are you going to explain how they abandoned everything on the left and adopted everything on the right virtually overnight? Are they gonna be mistaken? Are they gonna have any trouble remembering? I'm not gonna have any trouble remembering September 10th. I wish I could forget some things, can't. Impact event.

Then we have to ask ourselves the question, what did the New Testament writers have to gain by making up a new religion? What did they have to gain by saying Jesus claimed to be God and rose from the dead? Well, they got kicked out of the synagogue, and then they got beaten, tortured, and killed. Last time I checked that was not a list of perks. In fact, they had every motive to say the resurrection did not happen, not every motive to say it did. You know, a lot of times people are saying, Are there any non-Christian writers who talk about Jesus and the apostle, or Jesus and resurrectin,g and you know what happened in the New Testament? Records. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we have them all in chapter 9 of I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist, but you know what that question? Often, the question assumes you can't trust the Christian sources because you see these people were biased, only the secular non-Christian sources. Can you believe you know how stupid that assumption is? Do you think these Jews are suddenly gonna put themselves in harm's way for a lie? Why? Why would they invent this? They had no motive to invent this, and let me say one other thing.

Now, it's gonna sound odd. There are no Christian sources in the Bible. They're all Jewish sources. Oh, they became Christians. The question is, why did they become Christians? Because they witnessed an impact event. My friend J. Warner Wallace, some of you may know who he is. He's a cold case homicide detective who has been on Dateline many times because he solves murders decades old. He also, he doesn't live far from here. He lives in Southern California. And he wrote a book using his detective skills to investigate the greatest homicide of all time, the homicide of Jesus. It's called Cold Case Christianity. And Jim says that whenever he finds a body that he knows has been murdered, he doesn't have to track down a thousand different possible motivations for the murder. He says that the guy was murdered for one or more of these three reasons. There was either a sex issue, a money issue, or a power issue. Sex, money, or power. That's why people murder. That's why any of us sins. We're trying to get those good things. Sex, money, and power are good things, but they're so good, we'll often take shortcuts to get them. And so Jim says, whenever he investigates a murder, he's looking for one or more of those three motives. And he says, if you're gonna say the New Testament writers invented this whole story, you've gotta find one or more of those three motives.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, let's take a look at the New Testament writers. Did the New Testament writers suddenly get really popular with the ladies? for saying Jesus had resurrected from the dead. No, they didn't get sex. Did they get money? No, they weren't 21st-century prosperity gospel preachers. Did they get power? No, they got the opposite of power. They were persecuted. Paul had power when he was persecuting the church before he became a Christian. And then as soon as he becomes a Christian, he's the one persecuted. They didn't get sex, they didn't get money, they didn't get power. There's no motive to make this up. So why would they die for a known lie? You say, wait a minute, Frank, what about Islam? I mean, they'll die for their faith. Doesn't that prove Islam's true? No. There are a lot of differences between the Muslim martyrs and the New Testament martyrs, but let me give you one main difference for our purposes here. The Muslim martyrs haven't witnessed anything miraculous that tells them that Islam is true. They just have faith. But the New Testament martyrs witnessed Jesus rise from the dead or witnessed him being risen. They saw Jesus, they touched Jesus, and they ate with Jesus. They verified with their own senses that Jesus had risen from the dead. Yes, some people will die for a lie. They think it is the truth. Nobody will die for a lie. They know it's a lie. And the New Testament martyrs were in a position to know whether it was a lie or not, and they went to their deaths anyway.

In fact, let's sum it up all this way. The New Testament writers did not create the resurrection. The resurrection created the New Testament writers. In fact, I know it's going to sound a little bit odd, but stick with me, it's true. Christianity is not true because a series of documents we put under one binding we call the Bible, says it's true. In fact, Christianity would be true if the Bible never existed. You say, "How can that be?" Ladies and gentlemen, you realize there were thousands of Christians before a line of the New Testament was ever written? Yeah, why? Because Christianity did not begin with a book. It began with an event, the resurrection. Then, after that event occurred, they wrote it down. But it would have been true had they never have written it down. Of course, we would know much about it if they hadn't written it down. But Christianity did not begin with a book. It began with an event, the resurrection, and it was an impact event. That's why we can be confident Jesus rose from the dead. And to sum it all up, they put embarrassing stories in there. They put eyewitness details in there that showed they were actually there, they witnessed it, and then they died excruciating deaths.

So with all this being true, ladies and gentlemen, stop trying to achieve your identity and receive your identity. Our culture says you've got to achieve your identity. You don't achieve your identity. In Christianity, you just receive it. It's free. It's a gift. If you've got to achieve your identity, all the pressure's on you, and there's always somebody who can do it better. You don't achieve it, you receive it. Christ does all the work. You simply repent, accept what he's done, and then, out of love for what he's done, you follow his commands and bring other people into the kingdom. (congregation applauding) So this is true. You, Lord, area compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness. And despite evil that occurs to our friends, our loved ones, even ourselves, God redeems evil through Jesus.