He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. (Resurrection of Christ) Matt 28:6

As Easter has been celebrated all across the world today, it’s our joy to share the world the good news of our Lord’s resurrection from death. He is not here; he has risen from death, he has conquered the grave and now he is with the father interceding for his saints.

 It’s my joy to share you the story of Christ’ Resurrection with you, so that you may be affirmed in faith.

 Background:

^“As evening approached; there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who had himself become a disciple of Jesus. Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him. Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away.

 The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. “Sir,” they said, “we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first.”

 ”Take a guard,” Pilate answered. “Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how.” So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard.  Matt 27:57-66

It was the first Easter Sunday morning that a historical event took place in the world history.

 There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

 The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.” Matt 28:2-7

 #1 Was Jesus’ body stolen?

Matthew 28: 11-15

 ”¹¹While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. ¹²When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, ¹³telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ ¹⁴If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” ¹⁵So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.”
Then consider the theory that the body was stolen by the disciples while the guards slept. The depression and cowardice of the disciples provide a hard-hitting argument against their suddenly becoming so brave and daring as to face a detachment of soldiers at the tomb and steal the body. They were in no mood to attempt anything like that.

The theory that the Jewish or Roman authorities moved Christ’s body is no more reasonable an explanation for the empty tomb than theft by the disciples. If the authorities had the body in their possession or knew where it was, why, when the disciples were preaching the resurrection in Jerusalem, they didn’t explain: “Wait! We moved the body, see, He didn’t rise from the grave”?

And if such a rebuttal failed, why didn’t they explain exactly where Jesus’ body lay? If this failed, why didn’t they recover the corpse, put it on a cart, and wheel it through the center of Jerusalem? Such an action would have destroyed Christianity–not in the cradle, but in the womb!

 The reaction is very revealing. Did they respond that the disciples were lying, that Jesus’ body still lay in the rock-hewn tomb? No. Did they claim that the disciples were hallucinating? No. Instead, they bribed the Roman soldiers responsible for guarding the sealed tomb to spread what they knew was a lie. They told them to spread a cover story, to claim that Jesus’ disciples had come and stolen His body while they slept, and that they would cover for the soldiers if they got in trouble with the Roman governor.

 Here we have evidence from the very opponent of Christ that His tomb was empty. The best rationale they could come up with they knew to be a lie. There is no other explanation for how the tomb became empty except that Jesus was resurrected bodily and left the tomb.

 #2 BROKEN ROMAN SEAL

 A Roman guard of strictly disciplined fighting men was stationed to guard the tomb. This guard affixed on the tomb the Roman seal, which was meant to “prevent any attempt at vandalizing the sepulcher. Anyone trying to move the stone from the tomb’s entrance would have broken the seal and thus incurred the wrath of Roman law.
As we have said, the first obvious fact was the breaking of the seal that stood for the power and authority of the Roman Empire. The consequences of breaking the seal were extremely severe. The FBI and CIA of the Roman Empire were called into action to find the man or men who were responsible. If they were apprehended, it meant automatic execution by crucifixion upside down. People feared the breaking of the seal.

 #3 LARGE STONE MOVED

After the body was placed in a solid rock tomb, an extremely large stone was rolled against the entrance of the tomb. Large stones weighing approximately two tons were normally rolled (by means of levers) against a tomb entrance.

Those who observed the stone after the resurrection describe its position as having been rolled up a slope away not just from the entrance of the tomb, but from the entire massive sepulcher. It was in such a position that it looked as if it had been picked up and carried away. Now, I ask you, if the disciples had wanted to come in, tiptoe around the sleeping guards, and then roll the stone over and steal Jesus’ body, how could they have done that without the guards’ awareness? Clark Pinnock Mcmaster University

 #4 Seven Points proving their story absurd:

1. That so many guards under a death penalty would all fall asleep.
2. That they could remain asleep during the moving of a big stone and body.
3. That several disciples needed to move such stone and body could be quiet enough not to rouse a single guard.
4. Those disciples could accomplish this in secret working among soldiers stationed at the very door of the tomb.
5. That if the guards were all asleep they could know who took the body.
6. That their word was contradicted by hundreds of godly men who were eye-witnesses and would not lie or be bribed like pagan soldiers
7. That the miraculous events from the day of Pentecost on confirmed the truth of Christ’s resurrection.

 This article has been focused for two groups of readers; the first one is those who believe in the resurrection of Christ so that they could reaffirm their faith in Christ, and the second group of readers would be those who do not believe in the resurrection of Christ.

 We recommend those who fall under the second group to rethink their belief, because what if Christ resurrection was not true, then all those who believe or disbelieve would be safe at the same time, because there would be no eternal judgment; so let’s all eat and drink and wait until death separates us from this world. But what if the resurrection of Christ was true and as he said that, he will come and judge the world, then those who believe him would be saved, but those who do not, they will be part of the eternal separation.

 Why not believe Christ and be saved?

Bibliography

Josh McDowell, Evidence for the Resurrection, Josh McDowell Ministry, 2002

Finis Jennings Dake, Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible, Twenty-Seventh Printing-1998

United Church of God, Jesus Christ The Real Story, Thomas Nelson, Inc.-2004

BECOMING GOD’S MASTERPIECE

JEREMIAH 29:11

INTRODUCTION: God creates every creature with a purpose to make them become what He desires. God has a plan for our life. Regardless of how your life may look or feel right this movement; know that God is busy at work on this plan for you. Remember, too, that His plan reflects His purpose, His methods, and His time-table. But human beings don’t even care for it; the best example can be seen in Israelites life. Who after knowing God and enjoying all his blessing still forsook Him? God’s time-table for the Israelites involved 70years of captivity in Babylon (Jer29:10), that 70years was a death sentence for those who heard the prophets words. They would die without even seeing Jerusalem again. But God’s plan for us is not to destroy but to prosper. The plan of God has many dimension some of the important we are going to look below.

• 1. God’s Good Plan: A Journey- God would never plan for you a life of cruelty, a life where you couldn’t flourish in Him. This truth aided offers us security, and helps us to face the challenges and difficulties that we face the challenges and difficulties that we face in our current affairs moreover it makes us to think God’s plan as an adventure. Jeremiah 29:11 invites us to accept Christian life as an adventure and ride the roller coaster of life, knowing that God’s plan is for our good.
• 2. God’s Good Plan: A Process- God sees you as his and says I need to get her/him out! He sees in you the image of Christ and wants to set you free. The process of life is the process of freeing. In words of Jeremiah, the process of life involves plans for good and “not of evil, to give you an expected end”.
• 3. God’s Good Plan: An Opportunity- God advises that we treat adversity as an opportunity. He encourages us to regard hard times as important to our spiritual and personal growth, not merely something we have to endure. It challenges us to make our adversity count for something positive by learning all we can from it. It’s an opportunity from God to learn something we might not learn otherwise, and it’s an opportunity that God is using for our good.
• 4. God’s Good Plan: A fact- God has a plan for us that will be good, and the truth that He is still on His throne means that nothing can interfere with His plans. The truth of God’s love, power & faithfulness can offer security even when our feelings overwhelm. From our perspectives, a situation may look hopeless. From the throne of God, however, the situation is part of the process that is making us more Christ like and moving us loses to the fulfillment of good plans God has for us.
• 5. God’s Good Plan: Purging & Pruning- Before His plan can come to full fruition in our life. He eliminates all the old, dead, diseased and useless in our character. When we meet Sarah in Old Testament, for instance she is impatient, contentious, angry, manipulative, and unbelieving. But God works in her life and use failures, consequences, time and even unhappiness to bring her to a mature faith in him. In fact she is listed in Hebrews 11 as an example of faith. While such pruning process as Sarah underwent can be painful, it gives us an opportunity to love God by trusting that He is at work in our life to bring about the beauty he has promised.

Conclusion: God’s promises rebuke us when we are tempted to doubt God and question His management of our lives. I can almost hear God Chiding, “wait a minute! The plans I have for you are good and not for evil, and I will indeed bring that good about. I will bring you to an expected end.” Although I do not know the specifics of this promised end or what God will do in my life and my character to get me where He wants me to be, I can trust in the fact that He knows, and Has a complete knowledge of my life, a plan happen. With that reminder, God gives me the peace that comes with security in Him. Jeremiah 29:11 offers rebuke, comfort and finally, encouragement and assures us that God’s plan for us personally and for his people in general is for good, not evil. When you I meditate on truths like this one, we are responding to God’s love for us by trusting Him. We are also able to find security for any and every situation we’ll encounter in life- birth, death, marriage, singleness, widowhood, poverty, persecution, the unknown of move, or the permanence of being in an unpleasant place. God’s promise leaves no phase or issue of life uncovered. So let’s surrender our lives in God’s hand so that he can make us a masterpiece not a simple creature. May God bless you! Amen

 By: Pastor Sam George

      Buxar, Bihar (India)

James 1:19-25

¹⁹My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, ²⁰for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. ²¹Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.

 ²²Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. ²³Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror ²⁴and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. ²⁵But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.

Luke 16:8-14

⁸“The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. ⁹I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

 ¹⁰“Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. ¹¹So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? ¹²And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?

 ¹³“No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.”

 ¹⁴The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus.

Luke 16:1-7

¹Jesus told his disciples: “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. ²So he called him in and asked him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.’

 ³“The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg— ⁴I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.’

 ⁵“So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’

 ⁶” ‘Eight hundred gallons of olive oil,’ he replied.
      ”The manager told him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred.’

 ⁷“Then he asked the second, ‘And how much do you owe?’
      ” ‘A thousand bushels of wheat,’ he replied.
      ”He told him, ‘Take your bill and make it eight hundred.’

Jeremiah 29:8-14

⁸ Yes, this is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. ⁹ They are prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them,” declares the LORD.

 ¹⁰ This is what the LORD says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. ¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. ¹² Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. ¹³ You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. ¹⁴ I will be found by you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back from captivity.  I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”

Jeremiah 29:1-7

¹ This is the text of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders among the exiles and to the priests, the prophets and all the other people Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. ² (This was after King Jehoiachin and the queen mother, the court officials and the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen and the artisans had gone into exile from Jerusalem.) ³ He entrusted the letter to Elasah son of Shaphan and to Gemariah son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to King Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon. It said:

 ⁴ This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: ⁵ “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. ⁶ Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. ⁷ Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”

Psalms 40:11-17

¹¹ Do not withhold your mercy from me, O LORD;
       may your love and your truth always protect me.

 ¹² For troubles without number surround me;
       my sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see.
       They are more than the hairs of my head,
       and my heart fails within me.

 ¹³ Be pleased, O LORD, to save me;
       O LORD, come quickly to help me.

 ¹⁴ May all who seek to take my life
       be put to shame and confusion;
       may all who desire my ruin
       be turned back in disgrace.

 ¹⁵ May those who say to me, “Aha! Aha!”
       be appalled at their own shame.

 ¹⁶ But may all who seek you
       rejoice and be glad in you;
       may those who love your salvation always say,
       “The LORD be exalted!”

 ¹⁷ Yet I am poor and needy;
       may the Lord think of me.
       You are my help and my deliverer;
       O my God, do not delay.

Psalms 40:1-10

¹ I waited patiently for the LORD;
       he turned to me and heard my cry.

 ² He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
       out of the mud and mire;
       he set my feet on a rock
       and gave me a firm place to stand.

 ³ He put a new song in my mouth,
       a hymn of praise to our God.
       Many will see and fear
       and put their trust in the LORD.

 ⁴ Blessed is the man
       who makes the LORD his trust,
       who does not look to the proud,
       to those who turn aside to false gods. 

 ⁵ Many, O LORD my God,
       are the wonders you have done.
       The things you planned for us
       no one can recount to you;
       were I to speak and tell of them,
       they would be too many to declare.

 ⁶ Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
       but my ears you have pierced  
       burnt offerings and sin offerings
       you did not require.

 ⁷ Then I said, “Here I am, I have come—
       it is written about me in the scroll. 

 ⁸ I desire to do your will, O my God;
       your law is within my heart.”

 ⁹ I proclaim righteousness in the great assembly;
       I do not seal my lips,
       as you know, O LORD.

 ¹⁰ I do not hide your righteousness in my heart;
       I speak of your faithfulness and salvation.
       I do not conceal your love and your truth
       from the great assembly.

Leviticus 26:1-13

¹ ” ‘Do not make idols or set up an image or a sacred stone for yourselves, and do not place a carved stone in your land to bow down before it. I am the LORD your God.

 ² ” ‘Observe my Sabbaths and have reverence for my sanctuary. I am the LORD.

 ³ ” ‘If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, ⁴ I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees of the field their fruit. ⁵ Your threshing will continue until grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting, and you will eat all the food you want and live in safety in your land.

 ⁶ ” ‘I will grant peace in the land, and you will lie down and no one will make you afraid. I will remove savage beasts from the land, and the sword will not pass through your country. ⁷ You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you. ⁸ Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you.

 ⁹ ” ‘I will look on you with favor and make you fruitful and increase your numbers, and I will keep my covenant with you. ¹⁰ You will still be eating last year’s harvest when you will have to move it out to make room for the new. ¹¹ I will put my dwelling place among you, and I will not abhor you. ¹² I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people. ¹³ I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high.