EASTER

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=100 BGCOLOR="#CCCCFF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="04600640egdysm.jpg"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000066" FACE="Arial" ><B>BOOK OF JOB</B></FONT><FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000099" FACE="Arial" ><B> </B></FONT><B>    |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="BOOK OF JOB"><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id17.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="My Content"><U>My Content</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id18.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Photo Album"><U>Photo Album</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id19.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Favorite Links"><U>Favorite Links</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id20.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Contact Us"><U>Contact Us</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id36.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="JOHNS GOSPEL"><U>JOHN'S GOSPEL</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id37.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="PSALMS"><U>PSALMS</U></A>   |   <B>EASTER</B>   |   <A 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  |   <A HREF="id33.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="IJOHN"><U>IJOHN</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id34.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="IIJOHN"><U>IIJOHN</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id35.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="IIIJOHN"><U>IIIJOHN</U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=200 BGCOLOR="#0000BF" TEXT="#F7F7FF"> <div> <B>THEN CAME THE MORNING  Based on Matt. 28:1-10</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>ROAD TO EMMAUS  Based on Luke 24:13-35</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>BELIEVE IT OR NOT  Based on Luke 24:36-53</B></div> </td> <td valign="top" height=380 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <I>EASTER</I></div> <bR> <div> <B>THEN CAME THE MORNING  Based on Matt. 28:1-10</B></div> <div> <B>By Pastor Glenn Pease</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      Louis Evans told of the soldier who was wounded on the battlefield at night.  He could not move or speak, but he could see the lanterns of the medics as they made their way from body to body.  Finally a lantern was shining down on him, and after they examined his wounds one of them said, "I believe that if he makes it to sunrise, he will live."  This gave the soldier a goal to reach, and a hope to cling to, so he lay there looking up into the stars longing for the dawn.  "If I make it to sunrise I will live," he kept saying to himself, and so he filled his mind with thoughts of his wife and children, and all the reasons he had to live.  Then came the morning and a feeling of victory, for he knew he would see his family again.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Hope is a powerful tool in helping people get through the night of their trials to the dawn of a new day, and a new life.  Most of you have probably had some experience of waiting for the dawn.  The one that stands out in my mind was in my first year of college.  I friend of mine hit me in the front teeth on the basketball court.  I developed an abscess that began to hurt terribly in the night.  I lived in the dorm, and I can remember it being the longest night of my life.  I roamed the hall and pleaded for the sun to rise.  I was in such pain that I had no other goal in life but to see the sunrise and be able to get some help.  Nothing is so comforting as the coming of the dawn when you are suffering in the night.  Thank God for the morning that enables you to endure the night.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Easter is that morning of history than gives man the courage and the hope to endure any night, even the night of death when the light of life is snuffed out and darkness seems to have won the war.  God has always been a morning person, and it fits all we know of God that he would raise his Son up from the grave on a Sunday Morning.  It was the greatest single victorious event ever to happen on this planet, and it happened in the morning.  You don't hear of Easter sunset services, but Easter sunrise services, for it was in the early morning that the Son of God rose to never set again.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     That first Easter morning was the beginning of a day of Sonshine that would never end in the darkness of night, for Jesus turned on a light that all the powers of hell could never put out or even dim. Easter never ends, for on that morning of all mornings Jesus conquered death and darkness and brought life and immortality to light. There is just something about the morning that God loves. He dwells in perpetual light and he is light, and in Him is no darkness at all, yet He loves the dawning of the new day, and He made Easter morning the time of his total victory over the kingdom of darkness.  Easter was just the fulfillment of what we see all through the Bible.  God never slumbers or sleeps, but is ever alert to give songs in the night to his needy children.  But from the very start of creation God has been most active in the morning.  He does his best work in the morning.  That is when he created the world.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      I don't know if you have ever noticed before, but God's workday in creation always began in the morning.  After each day he said there was evening and morning.  For 6 days God began each morning with a whole new project.  We know it was morning because God told Job it was.  He asked Job in Job 38, "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?"  And after a few more such questions he added, "While the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy.  God started all his masterpieces in the morning.  On the 7th morning God rested and did no work, and the 7th day became the Sabbath day of rest.  It was still the sacred day of worship and rest when Jesus lay in the tomb.  But Matthew now begins the last chapter of his Gospel with God going back to work on Sunday morning.  The Sabbath was over and it was a dawning of a new week, and God decides it is time for a new morning creation that will begin a whole new history on this planet. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     God could have raised his Son on the Sabbath, but he was starting fresh with a whole new plan of salvation.  He was not going to dignify the Sabbath by the resurrection, and lock in the Sabbath forever.  He came to destroy the legalism of the Sabbath and make a new day of worship.  The Pharisees had no law against rising from the dead on the Sabbath, but it did involve a lot of forbidden work.  The stone being rolled away, and the Messiah getting out of his grave clothes, and traveling more than a Sabbath's day journey.  The whole thing would have been condemned had it been on the Sabbath.  So God chose to wait until Sunday morning to start his new creation.  It meant a mighty dull weekend in the tomb, but what a way to start a new week.  God skipped a chance to make the Sabbath the most sacred day forever.  Instead, he exalted the lowly Sunday to that status.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>       Sunday was just a commonplace secular day.  It was not sacred time, but secular time.  God took this day of common labor and made it the day that would be exalted above all others, even the Sabbath.   Easter Sunday morning changed everything for God's people.  It changed who they worshipped and when they worshipped, and how they worshipped.  Easter morning didn't just change our eternal destiny, it changed the whole design of our earthly life in relation to God. </B></div> <div> <B>The one thing it didn't change, but only confirmed, is that God loves the morning.  One of the reasons is, no doubt, because every morning is symbolic of Easter morning.  Every night we sleep and are like the dead, but in the morning we rise to walk in newness of life.  It is a fresh new day filled with the potential of tasting all the fruits of the Spirit-love, joy, peace, and all the rest.  Jan Struther wrote,</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>          Lord of all hopefulness, Lord of all joy,</B></div> <div> <B>          Whose trust, ever childlike, no cares could destroy,</B></div> <div> <B>          Be there at our waking, and give us, we pray,</B></div> <div> <B>          Your bliss in our hearts, Lord, at the break of the day.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     I could spend an hour just quoting the Scripture on the importance of the morning and beginning your day with God, and hours more quoting all the poetry men and women have written on it.  Let me share just a few:</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Ps. 5:3, "Morning by morning, O Lord you hear my voice:  Morning by morning I lay my request before you and wait in expectation."</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Ps. 30:5, "Weeping may remain for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning."</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      Easter morning is the greatest example of this.  The darkness night ever endured by God and man was on Good Friday.  Jesus entered the darkness of hell, and the world was plunged into darkness, and all of the disciples were in a state of gloom as they wept over his fate and their own.  Some of you may have heard Tony Compolo on TV.  He was describing how a black preacher went on for an hour and a half describing the darkness of Good Friday, but then he would say, "But that was Friday-Sunday morning is coming and with it the rejoicing of the resurrection."</B></div> <div> <B>It was after a dark and sorrowful world that the light of Easter began to shine.  Easter morning guaranteed that all evil and sorrow is only temporary, and that good and joy are eternal.  There is a great gettin-up morning coming when the night </B></div> <div> <B>of darkness ends forever, and the only kind of songs we will ever sing again are songs of victory.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      Easter morning is like that which the Psalmist waited for in Ps. 130:6.  "My soul waits for the Lord more than watchman wait for the morning, more than watchman wait for the morning."   He repeats that, for that is the hope of the watchman-the morning, and that is the hope of all Christians.  If we wake on earth we wake everyday in a world where Lam. 3:23 says of God, "...His compassions never fail.  They are new every morning."  If we wake from the sleep of death in heaven, we enter an eternal morning.  We wake in the presence of him who is the bright and morning star, and he promises he will give to overcomers in Rev. 2:28, the morning star.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     In eternity it is always morning, for we will be fresh and energetic and full of life with no weariness as time goes by.  It will be a fresh start that never ends.  It will Easter morning forever.  When Donald Cargill died a martyr he stood on the scaffold in Edinburgh, England and said to the crowd in a loud voice, "Now for the morning and the King's face.  No more night and no more darkness."  Easter morning provides us with the hope we need to face death with confidence, but it is not just pie in the sky on high by and by when we die that we need.  We need pie on the table in the now, and Easter gives us this as well.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Jesus came back from the dead not just to tell his disciples that they would go to heaven when they die.  He came back to encourage them in living, and to meet basic needs, he feed them breakfast on the beach.  He gave them a purpose, and it was to reach the whole world with the good news of Easter, and to teach the world all he commanded.  Easter is not just about victory over death, it is about victory over life.  It is about conquering all obstacles that get in the way of achieving the purpose of Christ.  The stone was rolled away, not for Jesus to come out of the tomb, but for others to see its emptiness.  But there are no end to the stones that need to be rolled away to fulfill God's purpose for our lives.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     God's mercies are new every morning because we can't live on yesterday's.  We need new ones everyday to overcome the obstacles in a fallen world.  Tom Dooley, the missionary doctor who died of an early case of cancer, told of lack of money, supplies, and tedious labor.  He wrote, "Every time I get discouraged and down in the dumps someone comes along and rings the rusty bells of hope, and I have encouragement to get back at it."  Easter is about a hope that enables you to cope with the frustration of a fallen world where nothing is just like it ought to be.  If Jesus rose and conquered death, then it is obvious his goal is to conquer all the lesser consequences of sin as well.  Death is the last enemy that will be destroyed.  Meanwhile, there are many other enemies to be destroyed now as we move toward that final victory.  Easter is about victory over all the forces of darkness.  We need to grasp this lest we think that the final victory is the only one that matters.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Leonard Broughton was a pastor in Atlanta some years ago when the water in the poor section of town became infected and 4 people died.  A city council meeting was held to talk about the problem, but it was tabled for further study.  At that same meeting they approved 15,000 dollars for road improvement in front of an influential member's home.  This so angered pastor Broughton that he invited the council members to attend a special service the next day.  A few did, and he preached for 50 minutes on the fact that Christ was not only interested in saving souls, but also in good water.  He even promised a reward for a cup of cold water given in his name.  The council members there got the message, and at ten o'clock the next day money was appropriated to clean up the water.  Broughton said later, "I baptized 75 people in the next few months, and almost everyone said that what got them interested in the church and in God was the fact that they were concerned about giving them water that was good to drink."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     When Christian care, not just about what people are going to do after they die, but about what they are doing now as they live, they will get people to consider their readiness to die.  If you don't care that they live right, they don't care if they die right.  Easter is about life, and all of life, not just the after life.  If it was just about the after life, Jesus would not have needed to come back and spend 40 days teaching and training his disciples.  People don't just need hope for after death, they need hope for every morning, and Easter hope is an every morning hope.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      Jesus is alive, and he is now as always a morning person.  He always rose early in the morning to pray, and though he does not need to do that now in heaven, he still needs to grant us new mercies every morning.  So every morning is special as a fresh new opportunity to serve the living Christ and be a channel of his love and light in a dark world.  Easter morning makes every morning special, for every morning is a new chance to know and serve the Christ of Easter.  Arthur Tubbs wrote,</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>            A moment in the morning ere cares of the day begin,</B></div> <div> <B>          Ere the heart's wide door is open for the world to enter in,</B></div> <div> <B>          Ah, then, alone with Jesus, in the silence of the morn,</B></div> <div> <B>          In heavenly sweet communion, let your day be born.</B></div> <div> <B>          In the quietude that blesses with a prelude of repose,</B></div> <div> <B>          Let your soul be smoothed and softened,as the dew revives the rose.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     It is a pretty poem, but the practice of it can make life beautiful.  A young office worker wrote about her experience in an article entitled, "The Day That Changed A Life."  Her attitude was so changed it changed the atmosphere where she worked.  When her employer asked what made the difference she told him she was not enjoying life as she knew God wanted her too.  She was bored and just generally unhappy.  She decided she would begin everyday with a determination to sense the presence of Christ in her life.  She would consciously seek to say what he would want her to say, and do what he would want her to do.  It became an exciting experiment that changed her, and as a result changed all around her.  It was making Easter morning a way of life in which she encountered the living Lord, and not just a yearly few hours of celebration.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Easter morning never ends, as I said, but that is not necessarily true in our personal lives.  For some it never begins, for they are without God and without hope in the world.  But for most of us it is intermittent.  It is off and on and off again, because we do not work at being conscious of the resurrected life.  After Easter is over we sink back into a spiritual coma, and don't come out of our cocoon state again until the following Easter.  I know that is a radical way of stating it, and it is not accurate for many Christians, but none of us are as alive to the Easter morning experience as we need to be.  We could all benefit by praying every morning something like the prayer of Ella Scherick:</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>          Lord, in the quiet of this morning hour,</B></div> <div> <B>          I come to Thee for peace, for wisdom, power</B></div> <div> <B>          To view the world today through love-filled eyes;</B></div> <div> <B>          Be patient, understanding, gentle, wise.</B></div> <div> <B>          To see beyond what seems to be, and know</B></div> <div> <B>          Thy children as Thou knowest them;  and so </B></div> <div> <B>          Naught but the good in anyone behold.</B></div> <div> <B>          Make deaf my ears to slander that is told;</B></div> <div> <B>          Silence my tongue to aught that is unkind;</B></div> <div> <B>          Let only thoughts that bless dwell in my mind.</B></div> <div> <B>          Let me so kindly be, so full of cheer, </B></div> <div> <B>          That all I meet will feel Thy presence near.</B></div> <div> <B>          O clothe me in Thy beauty, this I pray,</B></div> <div> <B>          Let me reveal Thee, Lord, through all the day.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The best argument for the reality of the resurrection, and both temporal and eternal hope, is not the empty tomb.  A negative fact, or an absence of something is not where the power is.  It is in the presence of something positive, like the power and love of Christ in life.  Charles Bradlaugh went about England debunking the Christian faith, and one day he challenged Hugh Price Hughes, a pastor at one of the missions, to a debate of the merits of the Christian faith.  Hughes agreed and said "I will bring to the meeting one hundred people who will testify to the power of Christ in their lives.  They will tell of sin forgiven and walking in paths of victory where they once sat in chains."  He said to Bradlaugh, "You bring those who can testify to the new and better life they have because of their unbelief."  Needless to say, the skeptic never showed up for the debate, for there is no argument that can match the reality of changed lives, and that is your most powerful weapon.  If you have no light to shine because Christ has made a difference in your life, then you are not going to have much of a witness to a doubting world.  We need to roll the stone away and let the Christ entombed in us rise and shine and bring morning into the night around us.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     You are your own best argument, and that is why it is so vital that you begin your morning with Christ, and learn to develop a Christlike attitude that takes you through the day.  I know that not everyone is a morning person and mornings are hard.  In the new heaven and new earth all God's people will be morning people, for it will be morning forever, and night will never come.  Meanwhile, we have to live in this world where mornings are not always pleasant.  The poet put it-</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>               The alarm is set,</B></div> <div> <B>               But I fear the worst;</B></div> <div> <B>               Come dawn, the baby</B></div> <div> <B>               Will go off first.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The idea of being an Easter morning person is developing an Easter attitude of optimism.  Genesis begins with the earth as a formless empty mass in darkness.  Then came the morning and God said, "Let there be light," and thus began the beauty of creation.  Chaos first, and then came the morning, and cosmos was formed.  This is God's pattern.  On Good Friday the God-man relationship was thrown into chaos.  Man in hatred killed God on the cross.  God in judgment cast man into hell in the person of his Son.  It was the most bitter battle the universe had ever seen.  God and man killed each other in violent conflict, and the world was plunged into darkness.  But then came the morning-Easter morning, and with it the dawn of a new day, a new life, a new age, a new people, and a new kingdom.  On Easter morning all things were made new.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     It was a world of darkness, then came the morning and a light that could never be put out.  It was a world of death, then came the morning and life conquered death.  It was a world of hate, then came the morning and love triumphed over hate.  It was a world of despair, then came the morning and hope was born anew.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>               Behind him were the shouts of scorn.</B></div> <div> <B>               No longer wore he the crown of thorn.</B></div> <div> <B>               This was the day that hope was born,</B></div> <div> <B>               On that first glorious Easter morn.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>And now it is always morning somewhere, for the Son of righteousness has risen with healing in his wings, and the sun never sets.  Everything connected with Easter is a symbol of optimism, hope, and life.  Even the secular symbols of Easter can teach Biblical truth if we see them for what they are.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Easter eggs are symbols of the sealed tomb of Christ.  But then comes the morning, and we break them open, and out of them comes life giving food.  Little chicks, or new life can be born from this mini-tomb as well.  The egg is a valid symbol of the Easter message.   So is the rabbit that is so popular in the secular world.  The rabbit lives in a hole in the ground much like the tomb of Christ, and out of that darkness comes a great deal of life.  If you have a few rabbits, you will soon have a lot of rabbits, for they have 5 or 6 litters a year.  They are symbolic of abundant life out of a tomb-like atmosphere.  I haven't watched a Bugs Bunny cartoon for years, but I know my grandchildren watch often.  Nobody consciously made Bugs a symbol of the Easter message, but the fact is, he can be made to be such a symbol.  He is pursued by those who seek to destroy him and rid the world of his presence.  But no matter how clever and deadly the schemes to do him in, he always comes out on top with a victory.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     No matter how big the cannon, or powerful the bombs, Bugs finds a way to escape and come out a winner.  That is the secular portrayal of the Easter message of optimism.  All the powers of darkness and hell could not defeat our Lord.  They did their best at the cross and it looked devastating, but then came the morning, and Christ broke loose like Samson from the feeble ropes that held him, and he rose victorious over all his foes.  We need to teach our children that many of our secular and cultural heroes are symbols of Christ.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Characters like Superman, Batman, and Tarzan are often the target of clever evil forces that almost do them in, but every time these forces for good escape and come out victorious.  The difference with Jesus is that his victory was not just fiction but real, and he can save us from all these evil forces that he conquered.  He saves us, not just for heaven, but for earth, in order to add life and light to this fallen world.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Charley Brown was telling Linus what an awful world it was.  And Linus said, "I think the world is better today than it was 6 years ago."  Charley protested, "Don't you read the paper or watch TV?  How can you say the world is better today than 6 years ago."  Linus responded, "I am in it now!"  That could be said in a spirit of pride, but it can also be said in a spirit of Easter optimism.  If the living Christ has come into your life because you have asked him to be your Savior, and have asked him to forgive you and make you a light in this dark world, then the world should be a better place because you are in it.  If you have never asked Jesus to be your Savior, do so this morning and make this Easter morning the beginning of a day that will never end.  Be able to go out into this dark world with the testimony, "I was lost and in the grave of darkness.  I could see no way of escape.  Then came the morning, and the Christ of Easter became my Lord, and I now live in the light of his victory over all the powers of evil."  Ask Jesus to be your Savior and enter the kingdom of optimism where the last word is-then came the morning.</B></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>ROAD TO EMMAUS  Based on Luke 24:13-35</B></div> <div> <B>By Pastor Glenn Pease</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     During the early part of the World War II, the crew of a vessel in the Caribbean Sea had an experience that illustrates the theme we want to consider on this Easter morning.  As reported by Walter Maier, this vessel was carrying a cargo of oil, and was suddenly attacked by an enemy submarine.  It raked the decks with shell fire and shrapnel, and before the crew knew what was happening a torpedo hit them.  It destroyed the stirring apparatus, and tore a gaping hole in the side.  The craft began to sink, and fire broke out.  Soon the order came to abandon ship.  Only one life boat and three rafts remained undamaged, and so the crew had to squeeze into these, and roll for all they were worth to get out of the danger zone.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The captain and 8 men had been killed in the raid, but all the rest made it into the rafts.  There they were, huddled together on a dark lonely sea waiting for the night to pass in great anxiety, and wondering what the future might hold for them.</B></div> <div> <B>You can imagine the thrill that came to them as the sun came up and they discovered their ship had not gone down.  Life took on an altogether different color.   The blackness of despair was now the brightness of delight.  Hopelessness vanished, and hopefulness filled their hearts.  With all the vigor of men who had a good nights rest, they rode back to their ship, and with some emergency adjustments brought it into an American port several days later.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     What an illustration of the experience of the disciples.  Everything was going so well, when all of the sudden, all the forces of evil on earth and in hell broke loose upon Christ, and they abandoned the ship.  The cross was to them like a torpedo that had ripped such a hole in their hopes that there was nothing to do but forsake</B></div> <div> <B>Jesus, and that they did in despair and utter hopelessness.  We want to follow two of these discouraged disciples and look at the three stages they passed though in coming to experience the joy and victory of Easter.  The first stage is-</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>I.  HOPE DEFEATED.  vv. 13-24.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     We know practically nothing about these two discouraged disciples.  In fact, we do not even know the name of one of them.  Someone has said that Jesus made His most remarkable revelations to the least remarkable people.  Here we see Him walking 7 miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus with two people who are never heard of before, and never again after this.  This shows there are no such things as unimportant people in the eyes of Christ.   Jesus is always busy with important people, for all people are important to Him, even if the rest of the world only knows them as cleopas and whats his name.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      As these two walked along talking of what had happened, Jesus drew near, unrecognized, and asked them why they were so sad.  Jesus knew perfectly well what the problem was, but like any good counselor He wanted to draw it out from them.  Just as He knows our problems, but wants us to come and share it with Him in prayer.  Modern pyschology knows that the best medicine is just to talk out your burdens to a sympathetic person.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Cleopas answered this sympathetic stranger, and the jest of his answer as to why they were sad is in verse 21, "We had hoped."  Note the past tense-had hoped.  We had high hopes that at last the Messiah had come, but the nails they put through His hands punctured our hopes.  It is no wonder they were discouraged, disappointed, downcast, and depressed.  No one can be happy when their hope has been crushed.  All of life is a search to find hopes that cannot be dashed to pieces by circumstances.  They thought they had found such hope in Jesus, but now it looked as if this too had been shattered by the cross.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     This search for uncrushable hope is true for all of us, and we all go through the experience of seeing that which we had hoped for be demolished by the circumstances of life.  These experiences of defeated hopes begin even in childhood.  The experience of pastor Donald Bastion is typical of many.  Though humorous to us, it is painful to those who pass through it.  He tells of how he fell in love in the first grade.  He had high hopes in spite of the fact that Marjorie was in the third grade, and she was big for her age, and he was small for his age.</B></div> <div> <B>His hope never wavered until one day he fell on some cinders at school. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      As first grade boys will do, he began to cry, and walked around the corner of the school building.  Of all people, he ran into Marjorie.  When she put her arm around him and tried to console him like a mother, it was too much for his male ego, and right there his hope collapsed and was crushed beyond repair.  How could a first grader love a girl who treated him like a child?  Being a normal boy he recovered, and went on to become a happily married man, but when hopes are crushed in the lives of adults, they often can not adjust as does a youth, and so we have a world in which a suicide is committed every few minutes.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     People  who commit suicide are not crazy, but on the contrary, they are usually very serious.  They have lost all hope, and have come to the conclusion that life without hope is worse than death, and even hell itself could hardly be as bad.  Without hope life is perplexing, puzzling, and even paralyzing.  Without hope a person is dead even while they live.  That is why the Bible considers those who do not know Jesus Christ as being dead, and as not having real life.  They are without God and without hope in the world.  The people who scoff at Christians, and call them weak are usually those who do not have the courage to think seriously about the ultimate goal and purpose of life, for they know it will only lead them to the dead end of hopelessness.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Clarence Darrow, one of the most brilliant and successful lawyers America has ever seen, was an unbeliever, and he made the great mistake of doing some serious thinking about the meaning of life, and he became a hopeless skeptic.  He was asked once if he had any advice for the youth of America.  "Yes," he said, "My advice is to go to the nearest building and jump out of a third story window."  He said, "Like if an unpleasant interruption of nothingness."  He had everything life could offer, but he had no hope.  Hope is essential to meaningful life, and the only hope that cannot be crushed is hope in Jesus Christ.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Getting back to our friends on the road to Emmaus, we see that they did not realize their hope was fulfilled.  Jesus not only redeemed Israel, but redeemed the whole world.  But this is a truth which does no one any good until they know it, and so we go on to the second stage of their experience.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>II.  HOPE DEVELOPED.  vv. 25-29.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      After Jesus listened to their story, He rebuked them for their blindness.  The Old Testament prophesied all that had happened, and yet they could not see it.  They were blinded by tradition which said the Messiah was to come and overthrow the powers of the world, and the Jews would reign.  When Jesus did not do what they thought He should, they lost hope.  Jesus teaches a strong lesson when He rebukes them, and goes back to the Scriptures to expound them.  The heart of the Protestant faith is here, for Jesus teaches that the Bible is to be our soul authority.  If you allow tradition to guide you, you can wind up believing just the opposite of what God reveals.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The quickest way to get out of the will of God is to let a professional do all your thinking for you.  That was the problem with these two.  They let the religious leaders of the day guide their thinking, rather than the Word of God.</B></div> <div> <B>There are millions today doing the same thing.  They never bother to search the Scripture for themselves.  They let professionals take care of that, and rest their salvation on fallible men rather than the infallible Word of God.  Following ignorant traditions was the curse of Israel, and it will be the curse of masses of modern people if they do not get back to a biblical faith.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     There is a legend about a race of people who lived in an isolated valley surrounded by high hills, and cut off from the outside world.  It is called the legend of the valley of ignorance.  The hills surrounding them were regarded as sacred, and any attempt to scale them was forbidden by law.  One day, however, </B></div> <div> <B>a youth with a spirit of adventure felt a strong urge to climb to the top and see what was beyond those hills.  He did it, and returned  to his village with his body weary, and cut from the rugged climb, but so filled with excitement he hardly noticed his injuries.  He told others of the land he saw, of fertile pasture, running streams, and of a mighty ocean that lay beyond.  The leaders of the valley of ignorance considered him to be a babbling fanatic, and they had him stoned to death.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Many years rolled by, and a famine came to the valley.  The streams dried up, the pastures withered, and the cattle began to die.  Someone remembered the story of the young man, and hope revived.  In desperation they forgot their traditional laws about climbing the hills.  They sent a group of men to see what lay beyond.  They, of course, returned with a message of hope and salvation.  All of the people gathered at the spot where they had stoned the youthful adventurer.  They erected a monument to him as the savior of his people.  It is only a legend, but so true to life.  Tradition is almost always an enemy of truth.  It killed the prophets; it killed the Son of God, and will go on cursing all who cling to it rather than the Word of God.  Tradition says there are several ways to be saved, but Scripture says there is only one, and that is by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Tradition told these two disciples that Jesus could not have been the Messiah, and so they lost hope.  Jesus comes to them with the Word of God, and He shows them that it was necessary that the Christ was to suffer all that He did, and enter into His glory.  As He took them through the Old Testament showing them these things a new hope began to develop.  Jesus did not reveal Himself to them at this point, but use the Scriptures to develop their hope.  He did this in order to teach that the Bible is sufficient to give us the truth of God.  They would only see Jesus for a moment, but they would have the Scriptures to guide them always.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     In verse 32 they admit to each other that their hearts burned within them as He talked with them, and open to them the Scriptures.  The evidence that new hope began to develop in their hearts is seen already in verses 28-29.  When they came to Emmaus Jesus made as if He would go on, but they constrain Him to abide with them.  They hungered to know more of that which He spoke.  This gives us a real clue as to why Jesus revealed Himself to these two.  They wanted to know.  No one is ever hopeless who really wants to know the truth.  Those who hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be filled.  Jesus had stimulated new hope in them, and they desired to develop it further.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     We notice here the courtesy of Jesus.  He did not force Himself upon them.  If they had had no interest, He would have gone on.  Jesus will knock at the door, but He will not break it down.  Jesus would not approve of cramming the Gospel down anyone throat.  When He sent the 70 out, He said, if they don't want your Gospel just shake off the dust of your feet and move on.  There is no point in trying to force a decision, for only those who decide because they desire to do so have a decision that counts.  These two desired Jesus to abide with them, and so</B></div> <div> <B>He came, and that brings us to the third stage of their experience.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>III.  HOPE DISCOVERED.  vv. 30-35.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     As Jesus sat at the table with them, He took bread and blest it, and broke it as He had done so often.  And in so doing their eyes were opened, and they saw it was Jesus.  Maybe it was the prayer, or the way He broke the bread, or the nail prints in His hands, that made them see He was the risen Christ.  Whatever, it was, as soon as they recognized Him He vanished.  Jesus had no intention of staying with them.  He was only concerned to lead them to discover that their hope in Him was not in vain.  It was perfectly fulfilled as Scripture foretold.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     At that moment they experienced the meaning of Easter.  They discovered the reality of the resurrection, which meant that in Christ we can have a hope that is eternal and uncrushable.  Not all the darkness of hell and death could quench His life and light.  Never again did they need to be without hope.  There cold hopeless hearts were kindled into flame, and as with those men on the sea who saw their ship afloat, knew life pulsed through their veins.  Hope in the soul gives strength to the body, and so they rose up and returned in haste to Jerusalem.  A new engine of purpose had been placed under the hood of their life, and with high octane hope they ran back to Jerusalem.  I wouldn't be surprised if eternity reveals that they were the first to break the four minute mile.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Crushed hopes are like heavy chains around our ankles, but the hope that comes to those who discover the living Christ is like helium from heaven that lifts and lightens.  Some people make a great deal of the empty tomb, and that is essential, but it is the negative aspect of the resurrection.  The positive aspect is the full heart.  The heart filled and flaming with hope because Christ is risen and is ever present is the necessary positive side.  They knew of the empty tomb before, but that is not enough without the positive awareness of the living Christ. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     I can imagine a beggar setting at the gate of Jerusalem seeing these two race past him in excitement, and thinking to himself, "Isn't that those same two who came dragging themselves along only a few hours ago with long sad faces?  What a change has come over them."  What a change comes to anyone who discovers the living Christ.  You cannot come to know Christ and be the same.  There is new hope, and a new flame that is set to burning, and it consumes that which does not belong.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     When Blaise Pascal, the famous French genius, and inventor, discovered Christ, he wrote in his diary that Nov. 23, 1624 the word fire, and after that he jotted  "joy, joy, joy, tears of joy-Jesus Christ."  Such was the experience of John Wesley when he felt his heart strangely warmed as he trusted in Jesus as his Savior.  And such has been the experience of millions who have discovered the living Christ.   </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     When these two disciples walked out of Jerusalem that first Easter they were saying, "This is the end, this is the end."  They were right, of course, but they did not realize which end it was.  But after their discovery they realized it was the beginning end of a hope that would have no end.  It was not the end; not even the beginning of the end.  It was just the end of the beginning.  The message of Easter is eternal hope, a hope that cannot end.  Life with Christ is endless hope, but without Him it is a hopeless end.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>          Christ is risen, Christ is risen,</B></div> <div> <B>          Sins long triumph now is o'er.</B></div> <div> <B>          Christ is risen, death's dark prison</B></div> <div> <B>          Now can hold his saints no more.</B></div> <div> <B>     </B></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>BELIEVE IT OR NOT  Based on Luke 24:36-53</B></div> <div> <B>By Pastor Glenn Pease  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     An Irishman on holiday in New York went into a drug store and asked for a small tube of toothpaste.  When the clerk handed him a tube he noticed it was marked large.  "I'd rather have a small one," he said.  "Listen bud," the clerk replied.   "In this country toothpaste comes in three sizes:  Large, giant, and super.  So if you want a small tube ask for large-see?"  The mystified traveler found himself caught up in the topsy turvy world of believe it or not paradox where large can be the smallest thing available.  There may be limits to what fiction can produce, but most anything can be true in reality.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The proof that truth is often stranger than fiction is the fact that the first Christians were also the first doubters, deniers, and disbelievers in the resurrection of Christ.  The paradox of Christian disbelievers is a biblical fact, believe it or not.  That first glorious Easter dawn is glorious to us as we look back from our point of view, but for those actually participating in that first Easter it was far from glorious.  In fact, as strange as it may seem, the first Easter was the day of the greatest unbelief in history.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     We think our day is one of unbelief and skepticism, but it cannot match the unbelief of the first Easter.  I doubt is there is any period of history that can match it, for it is the only time in history where all believers were unbelievers.  Believe it or not, there was not a single Christian who even showed a sign of belief in the resurrection of Christ until they were compelled to believe by His very appearance.  Everyone of them, without exception, was a confirmed skeptic and doubter.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      We are so use to making the quick transition from gloomy Good Friday to glorious Easter morning, that we tend to ignore the fact that Jesus had to work all day before He convinced His own disciples that He was really risen and alive.</B></div> <div> <B>The transition from gloom to glory was not as swift as we have come to make it.  It was a difficult process of persuasion, and not an instantaneous transformation.</B></div> <div> <B>As Christians, we often act as if belief was an easy thing, and an effortless goal to attain, but this is not being realistic about man's nature, and His natural skepticism.  When it comes to the matter of death and life beyond the grave, men have deep seeded doubts.  All the evidence of our senses is against it, and man longs for evidence of the senses to destroy his doubts.  We are so dependent upon physical facts for assurance.  Tennyson wrote, </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>          O Christ, that it were possible</B></div> <div> <B>               For one short hour to see</B></div> <div> <B>          The souls we loved, that they might tell us</B></div> <div> <B>               What and where they be.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     When James Russell Lowell returned from the funeral of one he loved dearer than life, he said to those who tried to comfort him with the hope of communion in spirit, </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>          Forgive me,</B></div> <div> <B>          But I who am earthly and weak,</B></div> <div> <B>          Would give all my income from dreamland,</B></div> <div> <B>          For a touch of her hand on my cheek.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Were these men deniers of the faith?  Not at all!  They were simply expressing the fact that belief and faith do not come easy.  The demand of the human mind for concrete evidence is so strong that the leap of faith is hard to take.  The biblical record recognizes this, and so, believe it or not, the first believers were not men and women of faith, but men and women of fact.  They would not accept anything by faith.  They not only would not take a leap of faith, they would not even take a step of faith.  All the critics of the resurrection have failed to recognize that all of their false theories to explain the resurrection away were originated on the first Easter by the Christian disciples themselves.  We shall see this as we go along.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     A. B. Bruce, the great Bible scholar, wrote, "The disciples were not clever, quick-witted, sentimental men such as Renan makes them.  They were stupid, slow-minded persons; very honest, but very unapt to take in new ideas.  They were like horses with blinders on, and could see only in one direction,-that, namely, of their prejudices.  It required the surgery of events to insert a new truth into their minds.  Nothing would change the current of their thoughts but a dam work of undeniable fact.  They could be convinced that Christ must die only by His dying, that He would rise only by His rising, that His kingdom was not to be of this world, only by the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost and the vocation of the Gentiles.  Let us the thankful for the honest stupidity of these men.  It gives great value to their testimony.  We know that nothing but facts could make such men believe that which nowadays they get credit for inventing.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Therefore, believe it or not, the most solid historical foundation for our belief is the determined unbelief of the Christians on that first Easter.  Our text reveals the climax of the day when they finally came to a point of recognition and rejoicing.  But let us look at the record of the rest of the day where we see resignation and resistance.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Not a single Christian greeted the first Easter dawn with a ray of hope.  The women made their way to the tomb to finish preparation of their Lord's body.</B></div> <div> <B>They were obviously convinced that He was dead, and that He would remain dead.  The men remained behind weeping in hopeless sorrow.  Death was victor, and the forces of evil had conquered.  The cross was the symbol of total disaster to them.  They held to their despair tenaciously, and rejected any evidence of the resurrection as some kind of hoax.  When the women found the stone rolled away, and the angel told them that Christ had risen, their reaction one of fear and unbelief.  Mark 16:8 says, "And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had come upon them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Some of the women were brave, however, and they finally decided to tell the disciples.  Luke 24:11 says, "Their words appeared in their sight as idle talk, and they disbelieved them."  Mary Magdalene was the first to actually see the risen Christ, and she attempted to persuade the disciples, but Mark 16:10-11 says, "And she went and told them as they mourned and wept.  And they, when they had heard that He was alive, and had been seen by her, believe not."  The very first preacher of the good news of the resurrection could not even get a favorable response among the disciples of Christ.  The first Easter message was a total flop, even though everyone present was a disciple of Christ.  Here were dogmatic and determined disbelievers.  No hysterical, and emotionally controlled women were going to make fools out of these level headed, common sense directed, realistic fact finding disciples.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     It was the disciples that originated the theory that the resurrection was the result of emotionalism, delusion, or hallucination.  They were the first to charge the women with an overactive imagination which invented the whole thing.  They, no doubt, looked upon these women as pathetic victims of their grief, while they as men, though sorrowful, still retained their grasp of reality.  Mary Magdalene was the originator of the theory that the body was stolen.  As she wept outside the tomb she said, "They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him."  The empty tomb proved nothing to her but that the body had been stolen.  Had she not been approached by Christ in person, she would have spent the first Easter searching for the body of Christ, and seeking for clues as to the thieves.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Jesus met two of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, and they were still sad and unbelieving, and they said, "We hoped that it was He which should redeem Israel."  They had heard all of the stories of the empty tomb, the angels message, and the testimony of Mary, but they were not convinced by any of this.  They were willing to believe that some other theory could account for all that had happened without it being a fact that Jesus was a live.  They were only convinced by a special act of revelation by which they recognized Christ.  When they ran to add their testimony to the increasing evidence we read in Mark 16:13, "And they went away and told the rest; neither believed they them."  Their unbelief was not based on their distrust of women preachers, for here were male evangelists that also failed to penetrate their shield of disbelief.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     So what do we find at the end of the first glorious Easter?  We find a group of fear filled disciples huddled in a room, and afraid for their lives, with no confidence or assurance.  They were confused, bewildered, and, no doubt, wondered if they were going mad.  They would have been okay with the theory that they were the victims of hallucination, or any other theory.  Then Jesus appeared in their midst, and they were terrified.  They thought they were seeing a ghost.  That first Easter was about as joyful as spending a night in a literally haunted house.  They must have been emotionally exhausted from all the sorrow, confusion, and fear.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     How realistic the biblical picture is.  And inventor would have had them singing the Hallelujah Chorus by the empty tomb, but real life is not like that.</B></div> <div> <B>David Read writes, "Let me ask you this:  If you lost a very dear friend in sudden death, and then after two days you suddenly saw him materialize in front of you, exactly as he was-would you immediately and spontaneously be overcome with joy and delight?   Would you really be glad?  I believe that you and I would be frankly terrified.  We should most likely ring for the nearest psychiatrist."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The realism of the biblical record has convinced many a skeptic of its authenticity.  It is so true to life that an inventor would have been unable to picture it apart from the actual fact of its occurrence.  All of this determined disbelief was natural, but Jesus did not let it pass unrebuked, for he had labored long to prepare them, and yet it was all in vain.  He rebuked them for not being willing to even accept the testimony of eyewitnesses among their own group.  This was the basis upon which all other men in history would have to believe, yet, they would not surrender their doubt on that basis.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     In Mark 16:14 we read, "Afterward He appeared to the 11 as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart.  Because they believe not them which had seen Him after He was risen.  And verse 41 of our text says that even when they were convinced, and heard, saw, and touched Him, they still though joyful, disbelieved, and felt it was just too good to be true.</B></div> <div> <B>If some theory could explain all this, they would have been ready to accept it.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     So, believe it or not, the hardest men to ever be convinced of the reality of the resurrection were the very disciples of Christ on that first Easter.  No other men in history whoever became believers needed as much evidence and persuasion as did these men.  Even then, Thomas was gone and demanded all the evidence the others had before he would believe.  The first Easter ended with at least one Christian still in the paradoxical position of being an unbeliever.  The Christians resisted belief until overwhelmed with the facts.  There is not a hint that a single disciple believed in the resurrection on the basis of the evidence we must believe on today.  They all had to see Him before they would believe.  That is why Jesus said to Thomas, "You have believed because you have seen me.  Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe."  Our faith must be that of the poet who wrote, </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>          Jesus, these eyes have never seen </B></div> <div> <B>               That radiant form of Thine:</B></div> <div> <B>          The veil of sense hangs dark between</B></div> <div> <B>               Thy blessed face and mine.</B></div> <div> <B>          Yet, though I have not seen, and still</B></div> <div> <B>               Must rest in faith alone,</B></div> <div> <B>          I love Thee, dearest Lord, and will,</B></div> <div> <B>               Unseen, but not unknown.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     We must believe with a greater degree of faith than did the first believers, but we also have a broader historical basis.  We have all they had plus the New Testament explanation of the Old Testament prophecies.  We have this realistic record of their own journey from darkness to light, and we have the record of a history transformed by the power of the living Christ, plus the personal experience of His presence and power.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Nevertheless, let us not be deceived into an easy believism, and pretend that only the willfully blind and hopelessly ignorant resist belief in the resurrection.  It is totally unrealistic to expect the majority of people alive today to respond on a higher level of faith then that possessed by the original disciples of Christ.  People are basically materialistic, and they demand visible proof of anything that calls for a sizable investment, or serious commitment of their lives.  If they do not see the reality of the living Christ in us who profess to know Him; if they cannot see a visible difference in our character and conduct that suggests the presence of a power which is supernatural, then what evidence do they have to persuade them to make the leap of faith?  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The Christian life which is not Christlike is the greatest hindrance to evangelism, and to the growth of God's kingdom on earth.  Believers are the body of Christ, and are the only part of the risen Christ men will ever see before the returning Christ appears in glory.  Each of us on this Easter morning must ask ourselves if we are convincing proof of the reality of the resurrection, for, believe it or not, it is not the empty tomb, or the stone removed, or the angel voices, or the history of the church, that is the vital evidence for our day.  It is, rather, the living evidence of a Christ-filled and Christ-transformed life.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     If your picture was published with the caption over it-believe it or not, and underneath was the statement that here is a life which is positive proof of the resurrected and living Christ, would those who know you be more likely to laugh, or give serious consideration to the evidence?  It is a frightening responsibility to claim that the living Christ indwells you, but none claim the name of Christ can escape this responsibility.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     God respects the craving of the human mind for evidence, and professing Christians are the evidence He grants the world.  All other evidence will fall flat without that of Christlikeness in the flesh.  People today, like the first disciples, want to hear, see, and handle before they will let down the guard of unbelief, and let the light of truth transform them.  Belief comes hard, and so the evidence must be strong.  As goes the typical Christian life, so goes the Gospel of the risen Christ.  The most effective evidence of Easter truth is you and I, believe it or not.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The resurrection of Christ is more than a fact of history.  Facts of history can be ignored, deplored, or adored, and have no significant effect on your life.  If I do not believe Caesar was the emperor of Rome, I may be wrong and ignorant, but I am not thereby any worse off.  If I do not believe there are pyramids in Egypt, I am misinformed, but I am none the poorer.  But if I do not believe Jesus rose from the grave and conquered death, I am lost, and I lose all the benefits that could be mine by faith in, and commitment to Christ.  This is a fact that calls for faith, and it is so vital that one come to have faith in it that every person owes it to himself to be a seeker until he finds whatever is necessary to persuade him to put his trust in the living Christ.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Easter means nothing can happen in life to a believer that can rob his biography of a happy ending, for that ending is always eternal life.  If you have never put your faith in Jesus Christ, do it today.  Ask Him to come into your life, forgive your sin, and be your Savior.  He promises you eternal life, and a happy forever.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>        </B></div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>