Welcome to a firm foundation presented by Princeton ministries with Dr. Ken Smith. This is Carol Smith, Ken’s wife. Please enjoy.

When Lord Nelson reported to the British admiralty his great victory against Napoleon in the battle of the Nile, all he said, the word victory is not a large enough word to explain what has happened today on the Nile. When we come today to Easter, if there is one word that should signify what has happened, it’s the word victory. And yet, like Nelson, it still does not capture the power and the meaning of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And yet the declaration of scripture is that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a great victory. And that as we come to celebrate Easter and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, it is with victory that we come. If you look at the teachings of some of the great scholars who have lived, for example, Socrates taught for more than 40 years.

Plato taught for more than 50 years, Aristotle for 40. The accumulative teaching of all of those men is some 130 years. And yet Jesus Christ taught for merely three years. And I think it’s fair to say that what occurred in those three years was so powerful, it was filled with such life changing power that the consequence of Jesus Christ is far greater than all of the consequence of the Socrates and the Plato’s and the Aristotles. Jesus never painted a picture. And yet some of the finest paintings of all of history were painted by people like Michelangelo, Raphael, da Vinci. Christians who used the canvas to convey the power and the victory of Jesus Christ. Jesus never wrote any poetry. As a matter of fact, he wrote no words that have come to us.

We only are told that he wrote with a stick in the dirt. And even that was brushed away. But Jesus, having never written any poetry, is responsible for setting some of the most beautiful poetry into motion. Dante, Milton, Christians and scores of others who took the life of Christ and gave it a cadence and a rhythm. So that some of the finest pieces of poetry that we have today are a result of the victory of Jesus Christ. Jesus never composed any music. And yet Haydn, Handel, Bach, Mendelssohn, all Christians took to composing hundreds of pieces of music that come to us today as some of the finest music that has ever been placed on a sheet of paper. And what was the source of their great love for music? At the close of box writing were these letters? S-D-G.

Soli, deo, gloria, to the glory of God alone. How is it possible that one man in three years set more pens to motion, became the source for more discussion, for the delivery of more sermons of teachings than any other person on the face of the earth. I think there is only one source of focus for a Christian to understand that question, and that is that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. There is no one in all of history of whom that can be said. During the french revolution, someone asked Talirand the question, the christian religion. He said, what is it? It would be easy to start a religion like that one, to which Talirand responded, oh yes. One would only have to get crucified and be raised on the third day to start that religion.

The cry of the church since that first Easter morning has been a cry of victory. A victory of Jesus Christ over death, the victory of Jesus Christ over the grave. In the first century we have Paul. Paul who met Christ on the road to Damascus. And what was the message of Paul? That Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. And in that is victory. A little further we find Augustine; some consider to be one of the fathers of the Catholic Church. And what was the message that Augustine wanted the church of his century to hear? The message, Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, and that is victory. Martin Luther, who is the founder of the Lutheran Church, what was the message that he wanted his generation to hear? That Jesus Christ was risen from the dead. That’s a victory.

John Knox, who is the founder of the Presbyterian Church, what was the message that he wanted his generation to hear? That Jesus Christ was risen from the dead and there is a great victory. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist church, what was the message for his generation? Jesus Christ is risen from the dead and that is a victory. The message of the empty tomb is the message of a victory. Now, what is the nature of the victory? Well, I think there are at least two parts of the victory. One of them is found in our text taken from Matthew 28 in verses one through six. For we find that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were coming in the early hours to anoint the body of Jesus.

There is nothing to suggest that they thought that Jesus was going to be raised from the dead. And when they come, what do they find? That the stone has been removed, that Jesus is not there. And the first emotion that they feel, we are told, is the emotion of fear. And so, the angel in verse five says, do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. Jesus Christ, wherever he has gone, has had victory over fear. I was reading recently about Stalin. Stalin lived his life in constant fear. As a matter of fact, he was so concerned about either being killed or poisoned that in his palace he had eight bedrooms and each of those bedrooms he was able to lock up like a bank. And why did he have eight bedrooms?

Because he feared that in the middle of the night someone might come and assassinate him. And so, he would enter those chambers and no one would know from night to night which of the bedrooms he would sleep in. Well, there are many of us today. The psychologists tell us that phobias and fears are rampant, that there seems to be fear gripping the hearts of many men and women today, to the point that if you live in a city, there are many who are afraid to live without their doors being locked at night, and who does not live with the fears of economics, fears for their family. And yet, Jesus Christ rose from the dead, that we might have peace, that our life might not be full of fear. What is it that you fear most in this life?

Jesus Christ has come into the world, and his resurrection has given the power that whatever it is that you fear the most, Christ will come and take that fear and replace it with peace. I know many people who, before coming to Christ, feared their neighbors for one reason or another. And then as they met Jesus Christ, something strangely changed in their heart, and they’ve come to love their neighbors. I know some who were addicted to drugs or alcohol, and they feared that lifestyle, even though they knew what it was doing to them. Then they came and they met Jesus Christ, and that fear was changed into a victory as they were able to leave that lifestyle and come into the lifestyle of Jesus Christ. I was reading an interesting little story about a philosophical clock. Do you ever worry about tomorrow?

Do you ever think to yourself, well, next week I’ve got so much work, and what about the next week? How am I ever going to get through it all? And some of us fear the future. Well, there was this philosophical clock who spent a great deal of time meditating about its future, and it started to reason to itself, I’ve got to tick twice. Every second, and every minute I have to tick 120 times, and every hour I’m going to have to tick 7200 times. And then he figured, and in a day, I will have ticked 172,800 times. And then he began to think about a year. And he said, in this next year, I am going to tick 63 million times and 72,000 times.

And then he thought about ten years from now, and he said, you know, I am going to tick over 630,000,000 times. And as he began to reflect upon his own future, the clock collapsed from nervous exhaustion. Sometimes, as we look at the future, we look at all of the tasks that we have, and it seems fearful. And yet Jesus Christ has even come into the world telling us that we should not fear for tomorrow. For tomorrow is full of its own problems. Just take today and the great victory of Easter, of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, is that Jesus Christ, not only in his resurrection from the dead, has given us victory over our fears, but perhaps more importantly, he has given us victory over the greatest fear of man, and that is the fear of death.

We are told in verse six, he is not here. He is risen, as he said. Perhaps this subject of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, his personal resurrection from the dead, has troubled more people through the ages than any other subject. People love the Jesus of the sermon on the mount. But when you begin to talk about the Jesus who was raised from the dead, there will be a silence that often occurs in that conversation. Do you realize that over the history of the church, there have only been four attempts to answer, apart from the scripture, how it was that Jesus was raised from the dead? One of those is simply recorded for us in scripture. And there has been throughout the ages, theory that the body of Jesus was simply stolen.

We read in Matthew 20 811 through 15 that the guards were given a large sum of money to the soldiers, and they were told to say that the disciples had come at night and stolen the body. Well, they said that the body was stolen while they slept. Now, in the history of the legal courts, never has anyone been allowed to give a testimony of what happened while they were sleeping. And yet these guards are to say that while we slept, the disciples stole the body. And how then can we explain, according to the history of the church, the great change that occurred in those disciples who were not to be found at the crucifixion, except for John? And what happened after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, after they met the risen Christ?

We find that Peter was crucified for his belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are told that Andrew also died by crucifixion. Matthew was killed having been run through with a sword. James was crucified. Philip was crucified. Simon was crucified. Thaddeus was killed by arrows. James was stoned to death. Thomas was speared. Bartholomew was crucified. James was killed by the sword. The only one of those twelve who died a natural death was John, who died as an old man on the island of Patmos. Who here, knowing that you had stolen the body of Jesus, would be willing to be crucified for that lie? Well, there are others who say, well, we can explain the resurrection of Jesus as having been a mass hallucination. And what happened was that at various times in various places, people had a hallucination.

Now, what’s interesting about this hallucination is that they all had the same hallucination and that the harmony of their stories of this resurrected Jesus are the same story. And anyone who has studied those who are in mental institutions, who, according to those who at admission, if you say that you have hallucinations, you are sent to the worst and most distant of the counseling centers for those who have lost contact with reality. Hallucinations, according to those who are involved today with people who have hallucinations, know that hallucinations occur to one person at one time and that they are a mark of having lost reality. And yet the scriptures say that over 500 said that they saw this risen Jesus. There are others who say it’s just simply a legend. It never really happened. It’s just a nice story. Well, this nice story had tremendous results.

One of them was that it changed a Jewish tradition, the keeping of the Sabbath, which was always on Saturday. And who were those new Christians who trusted in this risen Christ? Why? They were Jews. Jews who were converted to follow Christ. And what did they begin to do immediately after the resurrection? They changed the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday, the day upon which Jesus was raised from the dead. And how did they greet one another in that early church? As christians would pass one another in the street, one would say, Christ is risen, and the other would say to them, Christ is risen. Indeed, that the changing of the Sabbath was because of the resurrection of Christ.

The other theory that has been wandering throughout the corridors of history ever since Jesus was raised from the dead is the idea that it simply was a plot, that he really didn’t die, but he looked like he was dead. And actually, he didn’t die. What he did was he swooned. Swooning is looking as though you’re dead, but not really being dead. In 1966, there was a book that came out on the presses that electrified the community. It was written by a man named Hugh Schoenfeld. He was a Jewish historian from Britain. He wrote a book entitled the Passover Plot. In the first five months of that book, over 100,000 copies were sold. In the first two years, there were eleven printings of that book. His premise that the resurrection of Jesus Christ was a case of mistaken identity.

He says that Jesus, as he lived his life, began to see that he was fulfilling Old Testament prophecy, and that Jesus became persuaded that he must be the messiah, and that he therefore must finish out his messiah hood. And so, he concocted this plan of being raised from the dead. And along with Joseph of Arimathea and his friends, like Lazarus, that they had all conspired to make it appear that he was dead when really, he was alive. Well, as we look at the life, the ministry, the impact of Jesus Christ, I think we can only conclude, as scripture has declared to us, he is risen. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, just as he said he would. Paul tells us in one corinthians 15verse 55, o death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?

But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through Jesus Christ. The greatest declaration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is that Christ conquered the grave and that he offers to all who would put their trust in him eternal life. Wellington, who led the forces against Napoleon. We are told that England, knowing of that great scourge that was going across Europe, that wherever the troops of Napoleon went, was left behind ruin and death. And as he swept across Europe, Napoleon stood on the coast of France looking to England. And all of England waited for the attack, knowing that they had sent their greatest seamen, Wellington, to fight Napoleon at the seas. And all of England waited for the reports. And finally, at daybreak, the semaphore was signalled from one boat in the channel to another, until it was brought across the channel.

The message, the message that was being waited for in London and outside of London, in the cathedral at Winchester. They sat and they looked for the signal. Wellington, would he be defeated or would he win? And there, in the early hours of the day, the signal came, the signal which said, wellington, defeated. And a fog covered all of England. And the word was semaphored from that cathedral in Winchester as it went to all of London. And the word was spread. Wellington, defeated. And the people were full of fear, waiting for that great leader, that great force of evil, who would come and take over their little island. And throughout all of England, fear gripped those people. And within the hour, the semaphore was sent again. And on Winchester Cathedral, he looked and he saw the signal again. And the message came.

This time, Wellington defeated the enemy. And the word went out once again. But this time it was not a word of fear. It was a word of victory. And there was a day when the forces of mankind and every dark and evil force that could be gathered came to a hill of Golgotha, the hill of the skull. And everyone looked as Jesus Christ was placed upon a cross and his life was taken. And the message seemed to ring throughout the land Jesus defeated. But three days later, as they went to that empty tomb, the word was given, he is not here. He is risen from the dead, just as he said. And from that empty tomb the message went out to all of creation that Jesus Christ has defeated the enemy.

And anyone who would look at Christ must know that Christ has come, that you might not be fearful, that you might know that you have eternal life. Jesus came to declare, though a man were dead, if he believes in me, yet shall he live. Jesus Christ is the great victory Easter reminds us of the victory of Christ. Let us pray. Our God and our Father, we thank thee for the victory of Jesus Christ. And Father, we thank you that you sent your son, that he should die in our place for the sin of man, and that though it seemed that he had been defeated, and though he hung upon that cross and gave up his life, that father he was raised. And Father, we come this day to declare our allegiance to thee. We thank thee for Jesus Christ.

We thank thee that he has come to defeat the fear in our own lives, but more importantly, that he has come to forgive us of our sin, that we might not fear death. We thank you for the victory in Christ. Amen.

Thank you for listening to a firm foundation presented by Princeton ministries. This programming is supported by you, the listener. You may go to our website, princetonministries.org, or send your donation to Princeton Ministries post office Box 2171, Princeton, New Jersey 8543. That’s Princeton Ministries post office Box 2171, Princeton, New Jersey 8543. The Lord bless you and Dr. Smith looks forward to hearing from you. We would like to thank Rone’s web development company for making this webcast possible. You can find their link at the bottom of our website, princetonministries.org.