Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Good to see each one of you here. Well, those of you who join us online as well, let's do a little singing. As you can see, if you've looked at the music, we are singing Calvary songs today on this Palm Sunday. It's a good one to do. So we start at Lead Me to Calvary. And how many of you know that song Lead Me to Calvary? I thought it was pretty well known, but all of my singers were like, we never heard this song. We don't know this song. But I think that's because they're new to the faith. Who knows? Lead me to Calvary. We'll sing let's see, what are we going to sing? We'll sing about three verses. Lead me to Calvary. One, two and four. Stand together and let's sing together. By the third verse, you'll know the song. It's my life I crown shall the glory be lest I forget thy crown brown lead me to Calvary lest I forget lest I forget my agony lest I forget my love for me. Lead me to Calvary on the second show me the tomb when I was late and where angels and rose up my rain garden. Because I live last time. Forget destiny lest I forget my agony. Lest I forget my love for me lead me to Calvary on the last may I be willing to bear maybe my cross for thee even share thou hast won all to me lest I forget lest I forget my agony lest calvary let's have a word of prayer together. Heavenly Father, we're most grateful for Calvary and pray that on this Palm Sunday sunday before the resurrection celebration that we indeed would be mindful of Calvary this week. And that not only in our singing and our preaching and our worship today, but all through the week. It would be a holy week that's honorable to you. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen. God bless you. You all may be seated. Welcome to church this morning and glad that each one of you are here as we sing some Calvary songs. Let me tell you a few announcements that we've got going. One, just to make it confusing, I put Easter on the bulletin. But that's for you to go home and stick it on your refrigerator because next week is Easter and we've got the service time at 10:00 a.m.. And I know you'll walk in at 1045 and say, Nobody ever told me, right? So there it is. You can pin it on your lapel, whatever it is you'd like to do. It'll have all the notes on the other side. But you could take that and give it to someone, say, hey, we got Easter services, 10:00 a.m. Next week and I'll look forward to seeing you all here easter at Taos. I pastored in Texas. And on Easter Sunday you had 42 services because everybody in town who'd never been to church before was going to come Easter in northern New Mexico. You go on a picnic and everybody nobody's in town in Taos because it's ghost season. It's not tourist season. Everybody's going back to Grand Rapids and things like that and not here. And then those who are here go see their kids in Kalamazoo. Have you all been to Kalamazoo? When you're in Michigan, do you use Kalamazoo? Just like, as a fill in word for that's a weird place to go to. Sure. Okay. We do it here, too. I've never been to Kalamazoo, but anyway, whoever's here next week at Easter 10:00 A.m., I'll look forward to seeing you. And we'll have now Memorial Day. They'll pack the house here for Memorial Day because that's when all the tourists are here. Right. But look forward to next week. But Wednesday night is beef stroganoff. Brenda's Cooking Beef Stroganoff. Right. I was checking and looking forward. It's always good. 05:00 for supper. 06:00 jared Bohem. We've been having some fun studying him, and that's been good and fun. And you see the other announcements that are given here. And let's see. We got some birthdays this week. Jesse Marie has her birthday on the fourth. What day is that? Wednesday. Tuesday. This is the second. Okay, Tuesday, and then Wednesday whitney has her birthday. And Thursday, Rosie has her birthday. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. This is birthday month. Last week, we had three birthdays. We sang to you. John missed you, but we sang. Well, yes. John and john and Shelley had a birthday. And so this week, Jesse Marie and Whitney and Rosie have a birthday. I think we should sing to those three, don't you all? Let's do it. Happy birthday to you happy birthday to you happy birthday, Jesse Marie, Whitney and Rosanna. Happy birthday to you and many more. And retroactively to John, whose birthday was Friday, right? It's been a long time. Thursday, maybe. Okay. It was this week. Yeah. They get that way when they start coming so fast like this. We understand, John. Okay, good for you. Happy birthday. Anyway, glad to have each of you, including some guests, back with us from Grand Rapids. And they have increased since then. I already forgot your name. Nate. Stand and introduce your family. And who's here with you? My family. Mia, Lars and Beckett came up cows to be skin circus this winter. But we live in Michigan, so we're just here for this winter. I'm in Kansas recently. I don't know if we'll be back, but this is a good experience. And then my brother in law Doug, he's also from Grand Rapids and his two daughters, Natalie and Grace and his wife who's homesick. They came for spring break. Doug, natalie and Grace. We're glad you're here. And Lars and Beckett and mom and dad. Welcome back. Glad you're here. Thanks for being with us twice on your little excursion down to Taos in the back row. We have a guest here sir Ryan walked in, I'm like, Wait, is that Ryan all shaved, trying to look like me? Glad you're here. Ryan and the rest of us, our home folk here. Good to see everybody here today. Why don't you stand and say hi to somebody? Greet them and welcome them here today. Yeah, yeah. Lest I forget yes, I forget my agony lest I forget thy love for me calories now, if you would take your hymnal and go to hymn number 244. 244 calvary Covers It All followed by 245 and 246. So I think you can handle this. 44, 45, 46. Put a two in front of it and we'll be good. Calvary covers it all. Let's do the first and the last of a beautiful old hymn that we don't sing very much, but you'll enjoy it. You the world can impart was the message that came to my heart. How that Jesus alone cannot ring others in all my life in sin and say, like you said this bear Jesus turned on him there and counting covers in all with my soul in love shall he on heart with a gladness and song only one with the throne and Calvary covers it over. I don't know about you, but I think that's a pretty good word, isn't it? Calvary covers it all my sin with its past and stain my guilt and despair jesus took on him there calvary covers it all. That's a good word right across the page at Calvary hymn number 245. Energy and bright caring not my Lord was crucified knowing not it was for me he died on caleb grace was free but there was multiply to me there my birthday and cald. I got word and last my sin I learned then I trembled at the Lord till my guilty soul and boring turn to calvary. Mercy if there was great and grace was free but if there was multiplied to me there my burdens open. Liberty and calories on the last retaliations left all the grace and brought it down to land. All the mighty go and God gives that mercy. There was great and grace was free part of that was multiplied to me. And now let's turn one more page. I believe in a hill called Mount Calvary. There are things as we travel this as your reason. All the things that matter the most in this world, they can never be. I believe in a hill mouth now free. I'm believing and with ride has surrender and earth is no more I'll simply be over again cross I believe that the Christmas has the power change lives today until life is mine that is why by the cross I will say I believe in a beautiful mountain, Calories. I believe. And with my surrender and everything to the old rugged Rocky that life with its greatest stories surely something will come to an end. One will come through the darkness and leave my friend I believe in a you know dream I believe what has surrender I live to the old I surrender and earth is no more I'll still leave to be all rugged routiful singing on Calvary today you may be seated. Thank you each one of you. We have a new month and a new missionary of the month. Our new Missionary of the Month is a mission project right here in town and that is our Taos Vacation Bible School july 10 through the 14th and we normally have and hope to have 45 50 kids come and spend their week with us, and we will share the gospel with them. In Truth Academy, Madison's been working feverishly putting all that together. And for those who will be coming in to help and helping from here, we're grateful. But it cost a little bit of money. And the way we fund that each year is giving a week of our missionary offering to the Taos Vacation Bible School. So this month if you mark your gift towards missions it goes to the expenses of Vacation Bible School and if you leave your gift unmarked of course it goes to the work of our church here and around the world and we're grateful for that. Let me lead us in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we are most grateful for calvary here 2000 years removed and yet we still believe in it and still would give our lives for it and are grateful that the Son of God came and born of a virgin lived a spotless life and died a sinner's death taking our sin upon himself and was buried, rose again, lives today as Lord both of the dead and the living. And as Lord, he is offering this fantastic gift of grace that we are so awed by, dear Heavenly Father that God would not count our trespasses against us but instead would allow the righteousness of God to be within us not by works, not of ourselves, or we would boast, but it is a gift of God and for this we are most grateful. We pray that we would have the opportunity to share this gift with children in our community and others right here and around the world through the ministry of this church. Thank you for always providing for us. We give these gifts and in the prayer that that would continue and would be bountiful, we ask it in Jesus name. Amen. During our office, you can either put something in the offatory box back there or you can do that at any time. And then we will turn to our preaching right at after the alpitor. Can anyone name that tune? Play it again that's right if you came up you can come up here and sing it but you can't tell me the name of it right? Okay I sing of the mighty power of God I think that is the name of it and is that what you were going to say, I'm not sure. It is a beautiful, majestic hymn anyway, that we don't hear all that often. But here this morning in the preaching time, would you turn to John, the 20th chapter, the Fourth Gospel, chapter 20. And we are going to look at the resurrection. But as we have been doing in this particular series for three or four weeks now, we are looking at a new look at an old story because you all are advanced members of the Taos Theological Seminary don't need to deal with the basics. I think that you all recognize the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ that we celebrate on a regular basis, of course. But there are some things about the story that we look at and say, I never saw that before. And those are some things which have some strong theological impact. And so that's some of the things that we have been looking at over this series and today I want us to consider in advance the resurrection. This is, of course, Palm Sunday. We're not having a Palm Sunday sermon today in which we celebrate the coming of Jesus into the city of Jerusalem. As they were ready to crown him king and said, hosanna. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. And yet a different crowd, I'm convinced, on Friday said, give us Barabbas. Give us Barabbas and crucify Jesus. And he ends up dying on the cross, dead by that afternoon, buried. And of course, then on the first day of the week rises again. And I'm going to go ahead and look at that. Now, before I do, let me say that I think you and I are very blessed to live in, shall I call it, an age of knowledge. An age of knowledge. I especially refer to the knowledge of the things of the Lord because we have the complete revelation of God right here. We hold it in our hands. This is the revelation of God. It's able to make us perfect and thoroughly equipped for every good work. Well, hindsight is 2020, isn't it? And sometimes we take our hindsight and push it back before they knew those things. And that's not really a fair thing to do. And I think sometimes in doing so on a theological issue, we actually mess up our understanding of salvation and the age of grace in which we live. So I want us to celebrate the age of grace in which we live by realizing it is an age of grace in which we live. How's that? And recognizing this wonderful thing that we have. Again, I always apologize for the reference. One, because it's dated, and two, because it's cheap. But I don't know of a better reference or a better illustration than the old Kmart Blue Light special, right? That here comes an unannounced special on aisle seven. And it's only right now for those who hear about it, you get it. This is what a deal. Well, that's the age of grace for us. It was unannounced, it was unforeseen, it was unsearchable. Paul says, and here we are living in the age of grace. We ought to celebrate it and live it up and announce the special to everyone we can find because someday it will end suddenly with the rapture of the church. And so we live in this age of knowledge and that is a good thing, by the way. It's not only in religious matters, but in so many scientific and industrial matters too that we have an age of knowledge that it's kind of a nice time to live, isn't it? To be able to enjoy the knowledge that has come about and yet sometimes, even with all the knowledge that is ours, we as humanity tend to want to stick our head in the sand and pretend like we don't know some things, right or live as if that knowledge is not available. And guess what happens when you do that? I think what happens when you do that is you forget there's a collective forgetfulness of society and maybe church society is forgetting about the gift of grace that has been given to us and we need to go back and find the discovery of that in order to announce that better. You know, when I, for example, travel to Israel something and see some of the great structures that King Herod built. King Herod was not a great guy, but he certainly was a great architect and engineer and some of the things that he built that to this day, we have no idea how they did and go way back before that, say, to the pyramids. How in the world did they do that without all the modern machinery that we have today? I'm convinced it was just good human knowledge and skill and we forgot we weren't building pyramids anymore, got busy doing other things. We forgot how to do it and haven't rediscovered that to this point. Let's not forget the age of grace and the wonderful bounty that is ours in grace. And let's remember it by asking the question who knew about the resurrection before it happened? Who knew about it? Now, I think the standard evangelical answer, as I sometimes like to call it, the standard evangelical answer would be, well, all through the old testament, they knew that messiah was going to come. He was going to die, he was going to be buried, he was going to raise again, and he was going to die for their sins. And the way they were saved was just by looking forward to that which is going to be happened, just like we're saved by looking back to that which is going to be happened. All of that is inaccurate. Let's see how it was inaccurate by asking who knew? And let's go to John, chapter 20, verses one through nine. I got a picture for you. That picture came out awfully dark, didn't it? But it's supposed to be dark. It was early in the morning. It's the empty tomb. This is, I suppose, a couple of the ladies that were coming. This was one of those pictures that was long and narrow and wouldn't fit on my tall and narrow screen. So I skipped the empty tomb, which is off over here. Who did this one? Michael Nesterov. I think this is the first time to have a Nestorov painting in our screen. Here's the two ladies coming. It's dark and they're coming to the tomb. Do they know what they're going to find? Let me just go out. You've read the Bible. Do they know what they're going to find? No. But if you go online and say, who knew about the resurrection in advance? Why, everybody did. They all trusted in advance of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But basic facts say that ain't true. Now, let's look at the basic facts here as we go into John, chapter 20. Let's start. Verse one would be a good place, wouldn't it? The first day of the week. Of course, that's Sunday. The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark unto the sepulchre and seeth a stone taken away from the sepulchre. Then she runth and cometh to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved. Can I stop right there? Early in the morning, mary Magdalene's first. Mary Magdalene is the one that this Gospel is going to talk about. If we read Matthew, Mark, Luke, there's some others as well. This Gospel chooses just to talk about that one, about Mary Magdalene. So she comes and she sees the stone taken away. You may remember from the other Gospels, they're talking to each other. How in the world are we going to take away the stone? And she finds it taken away. She runs, goes to Simon Peter, who I think even by that point was the de facto leader among the apostles. He's the guy you go to if you want to take care of official business. He's been promised to have the keys to the kingdom, if you will. I know he had had some problems in the last few days that whole I never knew him kind of thing. But I don't even know if Mary Magdalene knew all about that. She comes and she finds Simon Peter and she finds who? The other disciple whom Jesus loved, who is John. We all know John because we Googled it. But it could be Lazarus. Just throw that out there. You'll have to listen to our John series to see that. I'm going to call him the disciple whom Jesus loved. That's who it was. So Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved. Okay, continuing in verse two and saith to them, catch this. Verse two. They have what, taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre. And we know we know what not where they have laid him. She's pretty much believing in the resurrection, isn't she? No, she's not believing in the resurrection at all. She knows the body's gone. Absolutely. She has no doubt about that. There is no body there, Verifiably. The stone was gone, the tomb is empty. She knows that. But she's not coming saying, hey, Simon and disciple whom Jesus loved, celebrate, he's alive. Nothing of that at all. Rather, she says, we know not where they have laid him. That doesn't sound like a live body. She doesn't say, we don't know where he's gone. We don't know where they laid him. Passive, tense, because he's dead, he can't do it himself. Let me give you a little quiz. This is not what you learned in your theology class somewhere else. You learned it here. You got it right. This is not what you Googled. This is what we just read in those verses. According to John, chapter 20, verses one and two, mary Magdalene immediately believed in the resurrection. True or false? False. Let me ask you another question. If she did not believe in the resurrection that morning, do you believe she believed that Jesus was going to die, be buried and rise again, let's say a month earlier? No. If she was looking forward to the death barrel and resurrection a month earlier, she would have come and said, See, I told you so. They told me I was crazy. I'm not crazy. He's alive, I just got to find him. She didn't say that why she thought he was dead. I hate to belabor a point there, but it goes against a point that Christianity makes over and over and over again. That's wrong. Incidentally, maybe I should have saved this sermon. You might have noticed the sign on the way in under the little marquee there, that two weeks from today. I'm going to start a little series of sermons called Unlearn It. Unlearn It. And it has to do with deprogramming our brains from evangelicalism, because there's a lot of thought out there that really, when you get down to it, even on a basic level, it can't be true. And we need to adjust our theology and get it right. But it's so easy to go with everything you've always known. Now let's go on. We pick up in verse three and says peter therefore went, and that other disciple came to the sepulchre. So they ran both together, and the other disciple did outrun Peter and came first to the sepulchre. And he stooped down and looking in, he saw the linen clothes lying, yet went not in. Then cometh Simon Peter following him and went into the sepulchre and see if the linen clothes lie and the napkin that was about his head, not lying with the linen cloths, but wrapped up together in a place by itself. Then he went then went also the other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre and he saw and what, believed. Hallelujah, we finally got an Easter believer. But what did he believe? The only thing to go in context and context is a good thing to go by when you're reading the Bible. The only thing to go in context is Mary Magdalene came and said, the body's gone. We don't know where he laid. No, there's a big stone in front of it. There's Roman soldiers there. The body's not gone. Oh, wait a minute, mayor Magdalene, you were right. I believe you now. The body's gone. We don't know where they laid you. I don't think there's any indication at all that he believed Jesus was alive. Rather, he believed the body was gone. And so we continue there. What was that? That was verse eight. He believed and in fact, just in case you think no, he did believe in the Resurrection. Read verse nine. I had the advantage that I already read verse nine. Read verse nine. For as yet they knew not the Scripture that he must rise again from the dead. Okay, let me just say it bluntly. Anybody who believes that the disciples were expecting the Resurrection doesn't believe the Bible. That's pretty blunt, isn't it? Because the Bible says it as clear as day. John, chapter 20, verse nine. Yeah, it was written in Scripture, but they didn't make the connection. They weren't putting those two things together, those resurrection scriptures, and give them the advantage of the benefit of the doubt. I guess that's what it's called. Give them the benefit of the doubt. If you and I didn't know the rest of the story and we go back into the Old Testament passages that have reference to the resurrection, my soul shall not see decay. I don't know that I'd make the connection. Yeah, I can look back on it now and say, oh, that's a description of the Messiah and his death barrel and resurrection. I see it plain as day. But hindsight is 2020. It's great to live in this age when we can see it in 2020. But I don't think they knew. In fact, I know they didn't know about it. It says right there in verse nine, and so as you begin to look at that particular story, they knew not the Scripture that he must rise again from the dead. Now we won't continue to read all of it, but I do want to just jump down, let's say, to verse 18, because Mary Magdalene sticks around the disciple whom Jesus loved, and Simon Peter, they left. But Mary Magdalene stuck around in the garden and she met with Jesus, right? And yet she doesn't know it's Jesus. She thinks it's what, the gardener? Okay. And verse 18, Mary Magdalene came and told the disciple, this is after the visit with the gardener. Mary Magdalene came and told the disciple that she had seen the Lord and that he had spoken these things to her. Now at the first encounter you're the gardener. Where have you taken him? Mary me. That's when she believes, okay, now I've seen him. I've talked to him. Then she goes and tells the disciples that here's the risen Lord. Now of course they were expecting this anyway. And so they said hallelujah. Just like we've been taught all along. Just like we knew we had our faith in the fact that he was going to rise again from the dead. Remember how they responded to Mary Magdalene? It wasn't like that, was it? In fact, just to see how it actually was, let's go back, turn back a few pages to Mark chapter what was it? Chapter 16. So she goes and tells the disciples and get over here to Mark 16. It gives us the response of the disciples. Mark 16, verse eleven. Let's start with verse ten. She went and told them that that had been with him as they mourned and wept. Why were they mourning and weeping? They thought he was dead. As they mourned and wept. Verse eleven. And they when they heard that he was alive and had been seen of her what? Believed not. Believed not. Can you get any plainer than that? Well, let's keep going in verse eleven, Mark 1611. They believe not and that he appeared in another form to two of them as they walked and went into the country that's the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Verse 13. And they went those Emmaus disciples went and told it unto the residue. How would you like to be called the residue? The rest of them. So I'm going to start calling you all the residue. Glad to meet with the residue here this morning. That's one of the benefits of King James. It just gets like some fun in there. Not like the boring translations. The residue. I got to get back to the sermon. They went and told it unto the residue. Neither believed they them. Okay, now you've got three witnesses. Well, in a Jewish sense three witnesses. That's testimony, you can take it here. And they got the two from Emmaus. They got Mayor Magdalene. Hey, he's alive. We saw him. We talked to him. Those at Emmaus could give the long story how they went through the visit and they ended up at the house and he was there sitting down to eat and all that kind of stuff. And so you've got some what I would think would be pretty convincing eyewitness testimony. We didn't believe the lady. Now come the two men. We don't believe them either. This is because they always were placing their faith in the future death barrel and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That doesn't make sense, does it? Lars? I can see that look. You're right. That doesn't make sense. Something is not adding up here. The plain testimony of scripture is they weren't expecting the resurrection. They did not immediately believe the resurrection. When they saw the empty tomb, they. Came up with some other situation in which it would be more plausible and then they didn't accept the testimony when people had actually seen this is three strikes you're out. They don't believe in the resurrection. They're not expecting the resurrection to come and so they don't believe. Now just stop the sermon right here and let's ask a little question. Would it be possible using I'll say Matthew, Mark, Luke and John but definitely just using the passages we've taught Mark 16 and John chapter 20 would it be possible using that to convince anybody that the disciples in advance believed the resurrection was going to happen? No. That's the evidence you got. You ain't got an argument you're done. They weren't expecting it. They didn't believe it. They thought he was dead. The reason they thought he was dead is because most people when they die are dead. They remain dead. Right? And they're kind of stuck on this. This is the way it works. Now let's move into the flaw of evangelical thinking. Normally I use religious art but oops today I have pulled this one. It's modern art by a French American artist nikki Defense Vale I guess is how you say that. I'm not very French but she died in 2002 or twelve or something like that. Anyway, born in France, lived in the United States and this is a piece of her art. Not my favorite but it's entitled she has it at the bottom there. Do you like my brain? My answer is no I don't like your brain. Your brain is not wired right. Something's wrong with that brain. Now I want to say and you know I have a little booklet out called Why I'm a Fundamentalist and you should be too because I think there's a lot of messed up thinking in evangelicalism but probably you could just broaden that out to Christendom as a whole. Sometimes I like to say Christendom. D-U-M-B. How you spell Christendom? We get these things in our mind and we just repeat them over and over and of course if you repeat it enough times what? It's true? Yeah, it's true. Everybody knows that. Yeah, that's true. Well here's one that is so standard in evangelical thinking that I kind of picture the evangelicals standing out here promoting their idea touting is the word I was trying to come up with touting their ideas and at the end saying do you like my brain? I stuck in my thumb and pulled out a plum. My, what a good boy am I. Do you like my brain? Here's what evangelicalism has to say answers in Genesis. They're a good organization, right, the Ark and all that kind of stuff and have done some great work on Genesis one through eleven and I'll give just a little opinion here. I like the work they've done on Genesis one through eleven and they should have stopped there. Sometimes when you're successful you just do something else because the people are coming. And that's typically when you mess up. Okay, so here's what they say. I got this from their website and a little article, how people were saved before Jesus came in the flesh. That's something people want to know, right? How were they saved before Jesus came in the flesh? They have this blog, it's also in a book, the same words in a book by Ken Ham, and it says this thus saturating all of Scripture. There's a gospel theme that showcases the suffering, resurrection and glory of the promised Savior, Jesus Christ. He is the central object of our faith and the fulfillment of all that the faithful who have preceded us down through the ages have believed in. Okay, that kind of sounds like all through the ages they believed. Scripture teaches that they believed that Jesus was going to die, be buried, and rise again, right? How was Adam? Saved? Why, same way we are. He trusted in the coming death barrel and resurrection of Jesus Christ. How about Moses? How about Joshua? How about Ezekiel? How about Isaiah? How about Malachi? How about John the Baptist? Well, they trusted in the future. Resurrection of Jesus Christ. And this is saturating all of Scripture's gospel theme that showcases the suffering and the resurrection and the glory of our promised Savior. Why, you can read it in Exodus, you can read it in Song of Solomon, you read it in Malachi, it permeates all of Scripture. Amen. Well, you aren't very good evangelicals or you would have said amen already. You begin to say, Wait a minute, I'm not so sure it permeates quite like I said. Okay, here's another one. Billy Graham, you ever heard of him? I don't know if he actually wrote this. It was on the Billy Graham website. There's an answers portion. This one comes from June 1, 2004. And the question is, were those who believed in God during the Old Testament saved through Christ? There's the question. Here's the answer. Both Old Testament believers and New Testament believers were saved by grace through faith on the basis of the shed blood of Jesus Christ. The Old Testament looked forward to the sacrifice of Christ, while the New Testament looks back on the same sacrifice. Billy Graham said it has got to be true, right? Right. What you and I do is question the assumptions. Here's one from Gotquestions.org, my favorite place for standard evangelical answers their question, the question on God questions what was the Old Testament way of salvation? So basically all these are asking the same thing how are you saved before Jesus? Okay, what was the Old Testament salvation? God question says, clearly, Old Testament saints were aware of the Promised Redeemer, and they were saved by faith in that Savior the same way people are saved today. Friends, we have three very prominent established evangelical organizations saying the apostles, John the Baptist, all these others, they were saved by looking forward to the completed work of Jesus Christ. And I don't have any doubt if we were to line up 100 evangelical pastors today and ask them the question, how are people saved in the Old Testament? We would get 100 answers that say they believed in advance in the death barrel and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Can I stop right here and say I think this is one reason why the church is dying on the vine? You go to almost every church, any church that has been around 25, 30, 40 years, it's full of old people, got two things, old people and empty seats. I know there's a few exceptions, but by and large, old people and empty seats, that's what you got. What happened to all the young people? Few of them had good parents. The rest of them, I kind of think it was probably their parents. Actually, when they were young people, I kind of think they went and they heard standard evangelical answers, but then they read their Bible and they said, this answer doesn't fit this scripture. And maybe they went to Sunday school and they said, Sunday school teacher, this answer doesn't fit this Scripture. Well, farther along, we'll understand why. Just have faith, boy. Just have faith. And the boy is thinking, if you say your book is true, let's just go with your book. Or let's not go at all, right? And ended up not going at all many times, although not necessarily promoting this, but I do talk to a number of people who said, I decided the standard evangelical answer was wrong. And so I was just going to study the Bible and go from there. And I talked to a guy just I think it was yesterday, it might have been Friday. He said, you know, my wife and I, we hadn't been church in 15 years. We study the Bible now more than we ever did, but we hadn't been church in 15 years. And I said, why not? Because we can't find one that actually teaches the Bible. They're teaching standard evangelical answers. And would you agree with me that you read John 20 and Mark 16? Those are not confusing passages, right? They're pretty plain and simple. The disciples weren't expecting a resurrection at all. And so I think we do have to come along and say, what's up with that? Somebody here is wrong. Do you think it was the Bible or got questions? Billy Graham answers in Genesis you're not supposed to talk bad about Billy Graham. Well, if his website's wrong, it's wrong. What do they say when Randy White says something wrong? Randy white. You're wrong. Okay. Billy Graham, you're wrong. Ken Ham. You're wrong. God questions, you're wrong. And it's plain as day. I'll challenge you to a debate, right? I mean, come on, we'll take the Scripture, we'll look it up, we'll try to figure this out. Now, do you like my brain? Not really. There. We have here's a picture of Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene. I wanted to give one that was fitting the topic. This one here's Duccio. I don't know Duccio, but he painted something in 13 eight. So it deserves to be put up, right? I mean, if your painting lasts that long. There is Duccio's again. I could barely fit it on there. But there's Christ and Mary Magdalene at the tomb. Let me ask the question why do I'm using evangelicals, but I could go across the board? I think even a lot of fundamentalists whatever. Why do evangelicals promote unbiblical thinking? Or am I wrong? That's not unbiblical, it's true. I'm just reading it wrong. Maybe. I don't know how else to read it other than they thought he was dead. They weren't expecting the resurrection. I think that the reason in this case, the reason that evangelicalism insists that people were always saved the same way is because they refuse to look at Scripture. dispensationally. What do I mean by dispensationally? I mean, there are different dispensations. If you don't like the big word, how about there are different time periods along the way? God revealed some things to mankind, right? That's what the Bible is about. He reveals himself to Adam, he reveals himself and he keeps revealing himself. And you and I have the scripture today. And dispensationalism really is nothing more than opening up your Bible, reading it literally and accepting the fact that there's a heart of dispensationalism. People didn't know what they knew until they knew it. That's a spectacular thought, isn't it? How many of you have that same characteristic? You don't really know what you know until you know it. I was like, I didn't know that before, now I know this. Whoa, this is wonderful. I didn't know. I didn't know that. And now I do know that. It's a new dispensation. Hallelujah. In my life. We could go through the room and we could spend the rest of the time we could spend the rest of the day talking about things you know now that you didn't know then. And you're like, Why didn't I know that? And it would be things from as simple as cooking. I'll tell you one dispensation in my life. Shelley and I went 25 years in our marriage not knowing how to make gravy like we thought. It was this hard thing that only old women could do. I won't say anything about Shelley having a birthday last week, but she can make gravy and I can too. You want gravy? I can make gravy. Real simple thing to make gravy. I never knew making gravy was like that. You mean just a little of that and a little of this? Boom, you got gravy. Why didn't somebody tell me this? It's a new dispensation now. We have gravy on everything. We could have fun going through the room saying, I didn't know this. Plain, simple, I didn't know it. Now somebody taught me, and I do know it. I'm in the gravy dispensation. Well, reading the Bible dispensationally is just recognizing they don't know that. How many of you have ever watched a scary movie? And in the scary movie, you know that the chainsaw massacre is going to happen upstairs, but the guy at the bottom of the stairs going up, it doesn't know that. And you're like, don't go up there. He's there. He doesn't know until he knows. It's a new dispensation when he discovers who's upstairs. All new thing. These are simple, right? Simple. And yet we expect the guy in the horror movie to know he's up there. Every horror movie has got somebody going upstairs, right where things are not going to end well, or maybe to the basement if they want to be creative. So what I want to encourage is read the Bible, taking it for what the felon knew there at that time, read the context, read the backstory, see what they knew up to that point, and then hold them responsible for things up to that point. I think I mentioned a few weeks ago, months ago maybe, I don't know that I had been listening to an audiobook about Dr. Benjamin Rush, remember him? Or the Founding Father. He was the only physician. And they had a pandemic in those days of I think it was yellow fever. And he was healing people by draining their blood. He thought that was the way to do it. And he drained a lot of blood from a lot of people, and some of them got better, and some of them died. But he thought it was working good. And the guy who wrote this story and this book, I guess I kind of agree with him, he really was telling Benjamin, dr. Benjamin Russ was a fantastic, unbelievably good doctor who made all sorts of benefit to modern medicine, thinking he bled people to death. But the author kept saying they didn't know you got yellow fever from a mosquito or how to get rid of it. You can't hold him responsible for not knowing what he didn't know. And he carried out medicine in his dispensation of medicine. Now, with that, you take this idea that people prior to the death barrel and resurrection of Jesus Christ were saved by trusting in the future death barrel and resurrection of Jesus Christ. You have to say, how did they know what they didn't know? Because you and I, just regular Bible students of the Word, we don't see that much of it when we read Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, numbers, Deuteronomy. I mean, how much of the future deathbed and resurrection of Jesus Christ do you get? You certainly get a future Messiah. You get a future Messiah who is going to stomp the old devil on the head. You get some foreshadow that somebody's going to come and rescue. But I would say if you read the first five books of the Bible, you don't know how it's going to happen. You can read the story of the serpent in the wilderness, right? And he's lifted up and all that, but they don't know what we know later. Even as the serpent was lifted in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up. And even then, when Jesus says that, I don't think you can put from that, oh yeah, Jesus is going to die, be buried, rose again on the third day, you wouldn't make the connection. We live in this wonderful age of knowledge. We know these things, but we don't want to make the mistake of putting them back on people who did not know those things. So I think that the evangelical answer, something's got to be wrong with it. Now, some may object to the fact of saying, oh no, wait, they really did know those things about the death barrel and resurrection of Jesus Christ because it was in scriptures. And it is partially true that it's in scriptures. As a matter of fact, you won't have to look there. But first, Corinthians chapter 15 is a chapter about the resurrection. And in that Paul says in verses three and four, one Corinthians, chapter 15, he says that Christ died according to the Scriptures and that he was buried and that he rose again on the third day according to the scriptures. So twice into those two verses it says that the death barrel and resurrection of Jesus Christ is according to the Scriptures. And therefore you might say, see, therefore they knew it. But then the problem is you come back to Mark 16, verse 18 and things excuse me, John, john, chapter 20, verse verse nine, where it says, yet they knew not the scriptures that he must rise again from the dead. It's not saying they were poor students of the word, it's saying they didn't have enough of the algebra equation to come up with the answer. They knew these scriptures were there, but they didn't know where to apply it, where to put it, how this was all going to come out. And so I think that we can see that these things they didn't know. Let's look at one more scripture. Let's go to Luke the 18th chapter, verse 32. And here Jesus is actually talking to Simon Peter and presumably the disciple that Jesus loved, and he's telling them what is going to happen. This is Luke, chapter 18, verse 32. And Jesus says, he's speaking about the Son of man that is himself. Jesus says, for he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles and shall be mocked and spitefully, entreated and spitted on, and they shall scourge him and put him to death. And on the third day he shall rise again. Let me stop right there. Did Jesus tell them that he was going to die, be buried and rise again? Yeah, it's right there, red letters. I saw it. He told him plain as day. Is this the same group of people that went to the tomb on that morning and said where have they laid him? Same group of people, he told them, plain as day. But then the Bible goes on verse 34 and says Luke says they understood none of these things. This thing was hid from them. Neither knew they the things which were spoken. Well, that's kind of plain as day, isn't it? Jesus told them plain as day and plain as day. They didn't understand it. It would be fun to invite them in. Maybe we could do it for one of our Bible conferences or something. Invite them in and say, what did you think he was talking about? Crocus? What was he talking about? And to hear them, my guess is my guess is I don't know. My guess is they might say, I could have had a V eight. I don't know why we didn't catch it. I don't know why we didn't see it. Maybe they would say that or maybe they would give some plausible kind of thing. We'd say, oh, yeah, I guess if you didn't know, then you might come up with that. Or maybe they just thought, I doubted on this one, but maybe they just thought jesus has been spending too much time in the sun. His fears are getting the best of it. Who knows what they thought? But very clearly again, it's there in verse 34 they understood none of these things. Now, let me ask you a question. If they understood none of these things, did they put faith in those things? Duh. How do you put faith in something you don't understand? So did the disciples in advance place their faith in the coming death barrel and resurrection of Jesus Christ? No. The disciples, I think, knew Jesus better than anybody, right? I would argue that the disciples who walked with Jesus for three and a half years, they knew Jesus better than Isaiah knew Jesus. Isaiah to to use a Pauline phrase, Isaiah would have to say now I see through a glass darkly, I can just barely get some things. Is it Peter who talks about these are things for which the prophets longed to look? They wanted to know these things, but they only had these little tidbits of information and they couldn't see these things. So if the disciples who walked with Jesus for three and a half years, if they didn't get it, how am I supposed to argue? Yeah, but Isaiah did, David. He did. He did 1000 years prior to those who didn't know it and were with him day and night. It's a pretty hard argument, don't you think? I would have a hard time convincing the ladies and gentlemen of the jury I'm not so sure that the justice system is all that just anyway. But I'd have a hard time in a just system convincing the ladies and gentlemen of the jury that this would be true, isn't it? Now again, why does evangelicalism hold to such a hold boneheadedly, right, Ryan, to such an untenable position? Because if they rejected it, they would have to become dispensationalists. And I googled about dispensationalism once and I found out it is horrible, horrible, absolutely horrible. Maybe we should just say, okay, I don't care about the word anything like that, but I do just want to read the Bible plainly in its context and not make people know things they don't know. I'm going to hold them responsible right there. Here's the revelation that's been given to them and begin to carry it out. So I don't know if I should be quite this rude in saying it, but I guess I've been rude all sermon on my Ask the Theologian program. I got something new, I got a snarky bell. When someone is snarky I ring the bell. The bell would have been ringing all through this sermon, little snarkiness. But what do you do when there's such an issue here? I think we have to say let's dump the standard evangelical answer. Let's just take the Bible for what it says. And that then I think helps us to come and say, when did they know about the death barrel and resurrection of Jesus Christ? Honestly, by the time the day's up, certainly a week later, thomas says, I won't believe it until I see and I touch. You remember that story, don't you? But they come in pretty quick order and say, yeah, we believe. And it does make a dramatic change in their lives. I think it would be impossible to argue that they were totally different people after this and believing in the resurrected Lord, they turned the world upside down. I mean they went out like a house of fire with that particular message. I mean the message that they had always believed, no, the new message, whoa, Jesus is alive. Even then I think we would say they believed him to be the Jewish Messiah who was going to come and establish the physical kingdom on earth and that's what they were proclaiming and rightly so. That's what they knew. And then later the apostle Paul comes along and if you just read him for what he knew, well he says, I got a revelation that wasn't given to man before. This is unsearchable, this is new. And it's Paul then that comes and gives this message by grace through faith, not of yourselves, lest anyone should boast. Paul says, the new dispensation. As a matter of fact, in the King James Ephesians chapter three, verse two, he talks about, he says, let me write to you a little bit about the dispensation of the grace of God given unto me. Guess what? They didn't know about the blue light special until the blue light came on the announcement over the loudspeaker and Paul has given it. You and I, we live in the dispensation of the grace of God. We know, we understand. We ought to celebrate, we ought to help people. I think the biggest problem in Christianity, perhaps, and I use Christianity in its broader scope, is that it doesn't understand the gospel of Jesus Christ by grace through faith, not of works. Lest anyone should boast this wonderful dispensation of the grace of God, it doesn't understand grace enough to know that God is offering a free gift to man, woman, boy, girl, anybody. And he's offering it not based upon their works, not based upon something that they can or will later bring, but based upon the fact that they say, I believe. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. It's good to live in an age of knowledge, isn't it? Amen. Let's have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, for whatever part we've had in propagating information that sounded good but just really didn't line up with Scripture. We are remorseful for that. And we pray that we would be effective at helping others see that there really is a new thing that we live in today. And seeing that in the Scripture and when that begins to happen makes all the difference in the world of how we apply so many passages that are ours or are not ours. And it frees us to live a life under grace, to rejoice in it day in and day out, to share a message and a gospel of grace here as we begin this week that is commemorated as the last week of Jesus's life. And we think about how it ended in that dark garden of Gethsemane and the arrest of Jesus that we looked at last week and the trial that we've not looked at this season, but the carrying of the cross and taking it to Calvary, as we sang about this morning, and then that death barrel and resurrection. I'm grateful that now we're able to look back in Scripture and Paul says, I delivered unto you that which I also received, that Christ Jesus died according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures. What a blessing it is to be able just to open up the Book and read all of the Hindsight and to have 2020 vision. When we go just according to the word of God. In this, we rejoice in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you for being here this morning. As we did a little questioning the assumptions, looking closely at the Word of God. And someone sent me, Herbin Lafayette sent me this little thing. I got to figure out how to put it on the pulpit or something. Be ye persnickety. When you get persnickety about the Bible, all of a sudden, wow, it starts making sense. Yeah, just take it for what it says right there. Amazing. So as you go out be ye persnickety, ladies and Grand Rapids and gentlemen, too, thank you all for being here on Wednesday night. We'll eat supper. How's that? How about some music for the for the departure? God bless you. You're dismissed. I know.