A dead man got out of a grave and everything changed.

Steve Brown:
A dead man got out of a grave and everything changed. Let’s talk about it on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
This is Key Life. We’re here to let you know that because of what Jesus has done, God will never be angry at you again. Steve invited our friend Pete Alwinson to do the teaching this week. Pete is a former pastor, founder of ForgeTruth.com and the author of Like Father Like Son.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. And I hope your pastor’s sermon was as good as our pastor’s sermon. Hey Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey. How you doing?

Steve Brown:
I’m doing good. This is my favorite time of the year. I mean, as you know, I’m kind of a scrooge at Christmas. But I’m getting over it. But I love Easter week and so that’s why Pete is here. We’re going to sit down and this week we’re going to talk about a dead man and getting up and walking. Pete Alwinson, as you know, comes in on Fridays and we’ve been doing that for over 25 years and we answer questions and you ought to check out ForgeTruth.com that is a life changing website with a life changing podcast that you’ll enjoy and lots of other good stuff. But this is our plan, and you know, we’ve been doing this a long time, so it might go in another direction, but we’re going to talk about the resurrection of Christ. And what an amazing gift that is from God to us, not just because of the implications of the resurrection, but because of the fact of it. Somebody has said there’s more evidence for the resurrection of Christ than there is for the life of Julius Caesar, and that’s true. It’s amazing. A guy by the name of Morrison was going to write a book to destroy the Christian faith. And he started doing research and started with the resurrection and ended up writing a very strong book called Who Moved the Stone? And in the process, he became a Christian. Now, we’re going to explore some of that this week and then Good Friday we’ll center in on the dark side, the cross. Which is really not the dark side. That’s an incredible gift, too. But that’s kind of the plan, and we’re going to do our best to, why don’t you read some Scripture and then we’ll talk about it, Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
Well, that sounds so good. I Corinthians 15, we’re going to read verse 12 through 19 the apostle Paul says under inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Now if Christ is preached that he has been raised from the dead, how does some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain. Your faith also is vain. Moreover, we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has been raised, your faith is, as if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless. You’re still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Jesus have perished. If we have only hoped in Christ in this life, we are all men most to be pitied.

Steve Brown:
Oh man, that is pretty clear. In other words, the infrastructure of the Christian faith is built on the fact that Jesus came back from the dead. But it’s not something people just say. It is so demonstrable that it’s powerful in the midst of our doubts.

Pete Alwinson:
Absolutely. Especially when you think about this taking place in Jerusalem, and we tend to think of a mega big city. Well, not really, and all of the effects we see in I Corinthians 15 and surrounding the resurrection that took place there influenced so many people that weren’t even expecting it. Nobody was expecting it.

Steve Brown:
No. You were talking, we were talking in my study a little bit earlier about what we’re going to do on this broadcast. And you were talking about, you were into the harmony of the gospels and you discovered harmony of the gospels. And there are a lot of versions of that. They harmonize what pagans like to call contradictions, which are not contradictions. And so, there are a number of books that harmonize the gospel so you can see the timeline, how it works. But you said you discovered something really different that I thought was good.

Pete Alwinson:
You know, it’s really fascinating that as I’ve been reading through the harmony of the gospel, and it’s the Thomas Gundry New American Standard harmony. You see that even with all of the gospel writers, there are small nuances of words that are different, even though the general flow is the same. And these argue for different traditions that were existed at the time that they drew from. So, you’ve got Matthew, Mark was probably the first one, right? And then, Matthew and Luke, well, they have a lot of overlap, but not a hundred percent, arguing for two other sources. And then of course, John is unique. And then what we found and just read in I Corinthians, so you’ve got at least five different sources that were extant at the time, but it’s all consistent, even though there are small nuances of difference.

Steve Brown:
Which would suggest you’ve got some witnesses already beginning to speak to what happened in the graveyard that morning.

Pete Alwinson:
Absolutely. And the point that William Lane Craig brings up is that a good historian will kill for two sources that agree about something that took place in ancient and we’ve got five.

Steve Brown:
That’s so good. And later on we’re going to see we’ve got 500.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
Which will be really good.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
But we’ll get to that when we get to it. Do you know, I remember the first Sunday, Easter Sunday, when I realized the resurrection was a fact. I guess I sort of got that, but I was serving a little church on Cape Cod and we had struggled to get a few people in the pews during the winter, but at Easter the ushers were coming out and getting chairs and putting them, made me mad. I really was gonna one shot at them and I was going to give him you know what. And the janitor came in, whom I love and still think of fondly, and he said sit down. And I sat down and he said, Pastor, you only get one shot, so don’t mess it up, okay? And as, when he left, then it dawned on me that Jesus was there. I mean, really there, not just a myth or a nice thought, or it was good to think, he was there because we thought about him. He was really there.

Pete Alwinson:
Really there.

Steve Brown:
And that was the first time I ever preached on the resurrection with that kind of power.

Pete Alwinson:
Wow, because you had been sort of liberal up to that point.

Steve Brown:
I had, I’d been, the graduate school I went to, a lot of the teaching was, there was no physical resurrection. It was a spiritual thing. Well, that didn’t help me very much. I mean, it means it didn’t happen.

Pete Alwinson:
What was that like in that congregation? That Sunday you preached powerfully on the resurrection and it seems like the Spirit of God got hold of you.

Steve Brown:
It really does.

Pete Alwinson:
So, what happened? Did you have people that just said, okay, this is different.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, well, yes, I think people did know it was different. I think lives were literally touched at that point. And the church became fairly successful, and the place where that started was in talking about the resurrection. That’s why it’s so important. It’s so powerful when you speak that truth, something supernatural takes place.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. Because the resurrection is true, all in the gospel is true, and everything Jesus said is true, and we bank our life and our eternity on it. And if the resurrection isn’t true, none of it’s true.

Steve Brown:
That’s so true. If Jesus is providing fertilizer for flowers outside of Jerusalem, man it’s all meaningless.

Pete Alwinson:
It’s all meaningless.

Steve Brown:
I mean, they’re right. The only question we have to ask is whether or not we’re going to commit suicide. And you can do that with a gun or a six pack or television program, just waste your life because it doesn’t matter.

Pete Alwinson:
Boy, that is so true. And I think there has to be a crisis point where the thinking person who God is calling interacts with the resurrection. Mine was in philosophy 101, way back where the professor said, how many of you are Christians? And I raised my hand and then I thought, I’m in a secular university here. Why did I just raise my hand? He said, in six weeks, I’ll prove to you God does not exist. And that led me into studying the proofs for the existence of God, but ultimately led me to the resurrection. And that’s the deal breaker right there.

Steve Brown:
And that’s why God gave, you know, there are a lot of reasons, we’re going to talk about that, a lot of reasons for the resurrection and we’re going to look at some of the proofs of the resurrection tomorrow, but God did that for us. He did that for you in that philosophy class. He did that for me when I was a young pastor on Cape Cod, as a gift. And it is a gift. It’s an intellectual gift. Now, it’s more than that, but it is a gift so if you’re willing, and most people don’t believe because they’re afraid there might be a God and it scares the spit out of them. But if they really want to know, this is the place where you need to do the research because God says this is true.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
Hey, you think about that. Amen.

Matthew Porter:
Thank you Steve and Pete. That of course was Steve Brown and our good friend Pete Alwinson. They’ll be with us this entire Holy Week talking about and teaching on the resurrection of Christ. It’s going to be a good one. Hope you will join us throughout. So, when was the last time you were still and rested? I’m talking about the kind of rest that restores. Well, Jesus did tell us.

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.

But how do we do that without a calm and quiet soul? Well, Steve speaks about this in an article called How to Have a Calm and Quiet Soul (from someone who struggles with it). You’ll find that piece in the new 2024 edition of Key Life Magazine. Claim your free copy right now by calling us at 1-800-KEY-LIFE that’s 1-800-539-5433. You can also e-mail [email protected] to ask for the magazine, to mail your request, go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses. Again, just ask for your free copy of Key Life Magazine. And one more thing, would you join in the work of Key Life through your giving? You can charge a gift on your credit card or include a gift in your envelope. Or simply text Key Life to 28950 and then follow the instructions. And as always, if you can’t give right now, we get it, seriously. And maybe you don’t even feel like you’re supposed to, also fine. But if you would, please do pray for us, would you? Always needed and appreciated. Key Life is a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. Both of those organizations assure financial accountability. And we are a listener supported production of Key Life Network.