The Sermon from THE Stone

But if they're here, I'd like to hear that song again.

In fact, let's start the service with that song.

Okay.

Wasn't that wonderful?

Praise the Lord and God bless you again and again and again.

What a great opportunity to come together and praise the Lord.

Great crowd today.

Good, good looking crowd.

A few exceptions, but most of you are good looking.

I don't know if in heaven right now on Easter, I don't know if the angels are singing or they're having any kind of special celebration.

I don't know.

But I believe probably in hell.

There are demons there and around the world that are moaning and groaning right now.

I really do believe that.

I believe they hate Easter with a passion.

They hate it and they gag every time they hear us sing.

Because he lives.

I can face tomorrow.

I heard a story about a little girl.

She was, I think maybe first grade or so, I'm not sure.

A little black girl in a church.

And they were having an Easter pageant.

And she got elected to be the angel that was sitting on the stone that was rolled away.

And she was going to say, he is not here.

He is risen.

As he said, boy, she practiced and practiced and practiced.

And the day came and she got seated up on top of the rock.

And her kicking her feet back and forth, just waiting for her time.

And when it came for her to say that, she forgot the words.

And she just looked around.

Everybody's quiet.

She said, well, he ain't here.

He done lef out.

And he did leave out.

Amen.

And he's coming back very, very soon.

Up from the grave he arose with a mighty triumph over his foes.

He arose the victor of the dark domain and he lives forever with his saints to reign.

Hallelujah.

What a savior.

One of the blackest assumptions that can ever cross the human mind is if Christ be not risen, I mean, what could be worse?

What would be darker to assume that happen first Corinthians 15 talks a lot about that.

Paul said, but now is Christ risen.

Now, now is Christ risen.

If he's dead, why are the adversaries today still trying to get rid of him?

I mean, just ignore Christ and Christianity.

Forget it.

Let the Christians do whatever they want to do.

He's dead.

But evidently maybe they believe he's alive more than we do.

If he's dead, why are so many martyrs, even right this moment while we are here in this church, are dying boldly and gladly for the name of Christ?

If he's dead, why die?

Who would die for a lie?

Amen if he's dead, why are so many lives still being radically changed every day?

And if he's dead, why is this church still assembling?

Let's go home.

Amen.

Why come to church if our Savior is not alive?

You know, this may sound strange, but if Christ is dead, why celebrate birthdays?

I mean, why would we get together and celebrate?

We're one year closer to death.

Amen.

If you're saved, you're one day closer to heaven.

And some of you have loved ones that's peeking over the wall and wondering, where.

When are you going to get here?

If he's dead, why do Christians rejoice at the graveside of loved ones?

And if he's dead, who's that living in my soul?

Amen.

I want you to take your Bible and turn to Luke chapter number 19.

And then we're going to look at mark, Luke, chapter 19.

I hope you brought your Bible, because the Bible is one of our greatest possessions and it's never been wrong about anything.

But in Luke chapter number 19, in verse number 37, it says, and when he was come nigh.

Even now at the descent of the Mount of Olives.

The Mount of Olives was a huge hill.

Shelly and I went up there, and it's a pretty long walk down a long, long slope.

It's covered with tombstones and white arches, all kinds of things.

And it goes right down to the bottom of the wall of Jerusalem.

And at the descent of Mount Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praised God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, blessed be the king that cometh in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven and glory in the highest.

And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, master, rebuke thy disciples.

Tell them to settle down.

Tell them to quit praising the Lord.

Tell them to quit saying things.

Just be quiet.

These were the unsaved religious people of Jesus Day.

He had more problems with them than anybody else.

They were very committed, but they were lost.

They were hoping their own righteousness would get them to heaven.

They hated Jesus.

They despised him.

They said he was a fake and a fraud and a phony.

He wasn't the Son of God, and they crucified him.

So some of the Pharisees said, rebuke.

And he answered.

Jesus answered and said unto them, I tell you that if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.

Can you imagine the stones crying out in the Book of Mark, just A few pages over, if you have it, Mark 16 and verse number four.

And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away.

For it was very great.

Not just great in size, because the ladies that went there that morning, I don't know if they even thought about it, when they got there, they started thinking, who in the world are we gonna get to move this stone?

And you know the story very well.

The stone was rolled away great in meaning.

Not just great in size, but great in meaning.

If that stone could speak today, what would it say?

Would it cry out?

When you talk about the stone, most people, if they're saved, know which stone you're talking about.

If you say the book, most Christians would say, oh, you're talking about the Bible.

When you talk about the Savior, you're talking about Jesus.

Most Christians know what the means.

But what is life and what is this love and working every day and raising a family and going to church if the stone never moved?

But it did move, and death moved with it.

Hallelujah.

Surely it was not rolled away so that the Lord could get out.

He wasn't trapped in there.

Amen.

I mean, he walked through walls.

There's nothing that could get between.

Anywhere he wanted to go, Jesus could get there.

It wasn't rolled away so he could come out.

It was rolled away so they could go in.

And you and I, by faith, can go in today through the word of God and see and believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead.

Amen.

Suppose that a child was entrusted to my care.

And it fell to my lot one night to put the little boy to bed.

And I would take him, I suppose, to his room and hear his prayers, tuck him in with all the good intentions and all the awkwardness of being a man.

Nobody can do that like a mama.

And then imagine as I'm about to leave the room and turn off the light, suppose the little fellow confesses a childish fear to me.

He tells me that he lives in the dread of the other side of that big, dark, heavy curtain in the corner of the bedroom, that he is afraid that there's something evil on that other side.

And in the darkness, he can almost see some sinister shape emerging to do him harm.

Well, I could give him a few words of comfort, it'll be all right, and leave the room.

But I'm too concerned about his peace of mind because he happens to be my grandson.

So I go to the shadowed corner of the room and fling the curtain back and the flood of the dark recesses with light and shows the groundlessness of his fears, the smile of assurance.

See, there's nothing to fear.

My removal of the curtain is no part of the removal of evil.

But it is part of the removal of what he was dreading may be behind the curtain.

I've come down to his level, you see, as a little boy that he may find peace.

And I'm rewarded by seeing him smile and fall calmly asleep.

You can connect the dots, can't you?

Of course.

He flung back the curtain of that tomb and nobody was there.

Nothing else to fear.

Peter and John run together to the tomb.

And John outruns Peter, but he hesitates to go in.

And so Peter catches up that he doesn't hesitate a moment.

He never does.

And in he goes.

And then John follows him.

When they're standing together in this sepulcher, they see the linen clothes lying and the napkin that was about his head not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together and folded in a place by itself.

This wasn't some wrestling with clothing, some labor of unwinding.

It was a glorious uprising.

All alone, he rose again behind the stone.

How calm and private that blessed sepulcher must have been after all the dreadful, shameful publicity of the crucifixion.

Quiet and still, blessedly secluded.

Jesus loved solitude, but he had no solitude.

Between Gethsemane in the sepulcher, working out the time is difficult, but it seems that eight hours after his arrest, he was hanging on a cross.

Eight awful hours.

In a space of six hours, he was examined five times by four different tribunals.

In all the haste, they arrested him.

From Annas to Caiaphas, to Pilate to Herod and back to Pilate again.

And then on the cross and having driven the nails and done their devilest, why couldn't they just let him die in quietness and in the company of his dear loved ones?

No.

The cup he had to drink.

So he hangs there.

Noise, dust, pain, thirst, the crowds, the jeers, the curses, the sobbing women.

He hangs stark naked between earth and heaven.

Oh, for quietness, for solitude, just to be alone.

Through his swimming eyes he saw his mother's face.

Brings Nazareth back to him.

Childhood and the friends and fields of Galilee.

John is there.

And he says to his mother, woman, behold thy son.

And to John, behold thy mother.

But then came those three words.

It is finished.

Jesus paid it.

All these people today that said, well, I know he died, but I got to do my part too.

That's a blasphemous thought, isn't that a shame to say, thank you, Jesus, but you didn't quite do enough.

Isn't that something?

There's still people think, oh, I believe I'm saved, but if I don't behave myself, I don't know if I'll make it or not.

I hope I make it.

I believe in a no so salvation.

And I believe in a show so salvation.

You can tell when people are saved, where they go, where they don't go, how they live, how they talk, what they talk about, how they spend their money.

It is finished.

Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit into.

And they put him in the tomb.

Do you still think of the tomb as being a cold and eerie.

No, I think it was quiet and calm.

Our crucified God rests for hours on a cool bed of rock.

But then he arose.

Amen.

I know we believe it, but how much.

How strongly do we believe that?

I heard a story about a true story about a family that tragically lost three of their four children within just two weeks to a disease.

Three out of four.

The family had buried the third child just two weeks before Easter.

On Easter morning, the parents and the remaining child went to church.

The mother taught her Sunday school class about the resurrection of Jesus.

The father read the Easter story as he led the opening Sunday school devotion.

People who knew about their great loss wondered, how could they do it?

One family of the church were in the car on their way home after church and their 16 year old boy asked his father, dad, that couple must believe everything about the Easter story, don't they?

Father said, of course they believe it.

All Christians do.

The young man leaned forward and said, not like they do.

Sometimes I wonder, could we stand the test?

Do we believe it's more than just saying?

It's more than just words.

We live what we believe.

It's hard to comprehend sometimes, to take it all in.

A woman named Ruth Dillo received, like many others, had a very sad message from the Pentagon.

It stated that her son, Clayton Carpenter, Private First Class, it stepped on a mine in Kuwait and died.

Ruth Dillo later wrote, I can't begin to describe my grief and shock.

It was almost more than I could bear.

For three days I wept.

For three days I expressed anger and loss.

For three days people tried to comfort me to no avail because the loss was too great.

But three days after she received that message, the telephone rang and the voice on the other end said, mom, it's me.

I'm alive.

Think about that, Ruth Dillo said.

I couldn't believe it at first, but then I recognized his voice.

He really was alive.

The message was all a mistake, she said.

I laughed, I cried.

I felt like turning cartwheels because my son, whom I had thought was dead, was really alive.

I'm sure none of us can begin to understand maybe how that would have felt.

But those disciples could.

They thought he was dead.

The ladies thought he was dead.

They were going to anoint the body.

But now is Christ risen.

No doubt there were many who hated him and watched him die.

And they could have thought, or at least said, I'm glad that's over with.

But it wasn't over, was it?

I'm sure the soldiers had not had a day quite like that before fighting the mobs.

I can imagine a soldier looking to the other one said, whew, I'm glad that's over.

But it wasn't over.

I'm sure the Pharisees, the religious leaders, the self righteous, smiled with a smirk because Jesus had upset their religion.

I can hear them saying, I'm glad that's over.

But it wasn't over.

Pilate washed his hands, maybe thought to himself, maybe mumbling under his breath, I'm glad that's over.

But it wasn't over.

Three long days followed.

Imagine the scene of Calvary the day after the crucifixion.

Three crosses still standing.

Imagine that.

Nails lying on the ground.

Blood stains, trash and debris across the ground.

Broken vessels.

A broken reed lying over to the side with the sponge on the end of it.

No people around, just all that stuff laying there.

You look closer, you'd find footprints.

A lot of people came that day, some of them just to make a day of it.

Just something to do.

But imagine the scene.

A holy hush and a chill in the air.

The clouds are still dark and thick, but if you'll listen, it's like the voice of the wind.

It's not over.

It's not over.

It's not over.

You know, Thomas Jefferson made this statement.

He was famous.

In fact, Ronald Reagan used it often during his presidency.

He said this.

He said, facts are stubborn things.

That's pretty good, isn't it?

Facts are stubborn things.

You see, ladies and gentlemen, our faith is built on facts.

On facts.

Most people don't believe that.

They say you just got to have faith in something.

No, faith cometh by hearing.

Hearing by the word of God.

Ronald Reagan Facts are stubborn.

It is profound, but never so profound and powerful as the fact of the resurrection.

The Bible doesn't set out to prove God any more than we would set out to prove that there's a sun shining today.

A man may deny the sun, but it won't keep him from getting sunburned.

Amen.

Not at all.

Think about that.

Overwhelmingly evident man may deny God, but it won't cancel the accountability of God.

You know what?

Everybody's going to get to meet Jesus.

Saved and lost.

Everybody.

You ever wonder what Jesus looked like?

Of course we have.

Think about that.

You're going to get to meet him personally.

The Bible says you shall see his face.

The only difference is there will be two different meetings.

One will meet him as Savior and others will meet him as judge.

Judge.

All the atheistic hammers and chisels throughout history have been broken in pieces and continue to shatter and blow away as dust as they keep beating on Jesus.

And the hammers are broken.

If we believe not yet, he abideth faithful.

He cannot deny himself.

Facts are stubborn.

The fact of the broken seal.

You remember that.

You remember when Pilate said, put him in the grave and roll the stone and then seal it.

It's interesting, too.

It's another sermon.

But he said, make it as sure as you can.

It was almost like he said, I don't know if it's gonna do any good or not, but try to make it as sure as you can.

But in those days, to break a seal was punishable by death.

Especially the seal of the governor, the ruler.

The fact of the removed stone.

The fact of the prostrate Roman guard who said, surely this was the Son of God.

Did he get saved that day?

I don't know.

The fact of the empty tomb.

The fact of Mary Magdalene.

Mary, the mother of Jesus.

There was another Mary there, too.

Mary's sister.

The fact of the other women who came to embalm his body and heard the most glorious words to ever be spoken.

The fact of Simon Peter.

The fact of James, who met him face to face.

What about Thomas?

Yeah, doubting Thomas.

But he actually touched the wounds of Jesus and cried out, my Lord and my God.

The fact of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus whose hearts burned within them.

The fact of the seven fishermen who went fishing with the resurrected Christ.

In fact, they ate breakfast with him.

How would you like to eat breakfast with Jesus?

Over 500 believers saw him all at one time.

Oh, we could go on and on and on.

The facts.

They're stubborn, but they're there.

People love to deny them, but they can't.

Can I close With a few other facts you haven't thought of.

Especially if you're here today and you're not sure you're saved.

You've joined the church, you've been baptized once or twice, you have a Bible.

And if people pressure you, believe it.

But if somebody was to ask you, are you saved?

And some people would say, well, I think I am.

I hope I am.

I'm trying to be a good person.

But do you know you're saved?

Well, nobody can know that.

That's what a lot of people say.

But if you're not saved, you are.

It's a fact.

You're going to face death, and that's not the end.

It is appointed unto man once to die.

But after this, the judgment.

After this, most people, even though they don't believe, will wonder.

I wonder after I die, if there's anything going to happen.

Am I going to see anything or feel anything or hear anything?

It's a fact that death is not the end.

It's a fact that if you're not saved, you've broken God's laws.

And God is holy and righteous and perfect.

And it says the wages of sin is death.

But he who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God.

In him, Christ paid the penalty.

It's the fact there is a heaven and there is a hell.

Heaven's not a dream.

Hell is not a curse word.

It's a place.

In fact, Jesus preached more about hell than he did heaven.

Why would a man do that?

Because he was in a bad mood?

No, because the Bible says God's not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

You've heard salvation.

You've heard how to be saved.

Maybe you prayed a prayer.

Do you have faith in your prayer or do you have faith in Jesus?

Do you remember where you were saved?

No.

Do you remember when you were saved?

Not really.

I didn't write it down.

Do you remember how you were saved?

That's the one that counts.

Tell me if I'm wrong, but can anybody be saved and they don't know how they got saved?

No way.

Dad, have you ever told your family how you got saved?

Mom.

Have you ever told your kids and your husband how you got.

You ever shared your testimony?

I'm just asking, Do you know it?

The facts.

You can know Christ.

You can believe on Christ.

Listen to believe in Jesus.

The devil believes in Jesus.

You can go up and down the street, you believe in Jesus.

It's been proven Even by unsaved historians, that there was a crucifixion and a man named Jesus who supposedly healed a lot of people and died and rose again.

Historians know that.

But do you know from experience the Lord Jesus Christ?

Have you believed on Christ?

Have you put all your weight on Christ?

If I got Brother Stone to put a chair over here and I put one leg on that chair, that's not totally believing that chair is going to hold me up.

But if you see me stand up on the chair with both legs, you know that chair can hold me, right?

You see, to be saved is to put all your weight, all your trust, all your hope on the life, the death, the burial and the resurrection of the God man, Jesus Christ.

I shudder to think how churches across the country are filled with unsaved people.

You say.

Well, preacher, you sound kind of egotistical.

You think you got it made?

I don't think.

I know.

Because my faith is not in Chuck Wetherby.

My faith is in Jesus Christ and him alone.

Plus nothing.

Minus nothing.

Not plus the baptism or plus this or if you promise that in my hand, in my hand no price I bring only to the cross I cling.

What will you do with Jesus?

It's interesting that Pilate asked that to the mob.

What shall I do with Jesus?

They said, crucify him.

What did he do with Jesus?

I don't know.

But what will you do with Jesus?

Neutral.

You cannot be.

Because one day you'll ask the question, what will he do with me?

That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shall be saved.

For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

For the scripture saith, whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.

For whosoever.

Hey, that's my name.

Did you ever see your name in the Bible?

Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Amen.

John said when I saw him in Revelation 1.

He said, When I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead.

And he laid his right hand upon me, saying, fear not.

I am the first and the last.

I'm he that liveth and was dead.

And behold, I am alive forevermore.

Amen.

And he said, and have the keys of hell and of death.

The key, you know, whoever has the keys usually has some kind of authority, some kind of trust that you can go in.

You have the key.

Only Jesus has the key to Heaven.

He's the only one.

You don't have a key.

Only Jesus.

Do you know him?

I want you to stand to your feet with your heads bowed and your eyes closed for just a moment.

Everyone standing.

And I want you that are saved to pray that God would give the courage to some here today to come and get it settled about their salvation.

It's very rare to.

I've been in for 50 plus years.

It's very rare for people to get saved on Easter because it's a big crowd and they got their mind on other things.

Big day plan, kids, all kinds of stuff going on.

It's kind of hard.

I've seen it happen.

I'm thinking of one right now that told me, preacher, I got saved on Easter Sunday when you preached on the resurrection.

You're not here by coincidence or accident.

God knows you're here.

He brought you here.

You might think you brought yourself, but no, God's in control.

And you heard the gospel.

You won't ever be able to stand and say, well, no one ever told me.

No one ever explained it to me, well, you already heard it.

What will you do with Jesus?

Christian?

What about you?

You say, I'm saved.

I know I'm saved.

But are you walking close to God?

Do people know you serve a real living Savior?

Does people know that?

Does your family know that?

Have you wandered a little bit away from God and you need to come back today and start over again?

Maybe you want to join the church today.

Wouldn't that be something?

Maybe you're looking for a church home and you say, I think God's leading me here.

We'll receive you into this church, family.

Any scriptural way that you'll come will explain how you can become a member.

We're going to sing Word a.