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Book: John
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John 2:19 I Will Rise Again
Intro. Jesus has come to Jerusalem with some of His disciples and when He
observed the merchandising in the Temple He made a whip and
drove out those who sold the oxen and sheep, and the money
changers.
I. The challenge of the Jews.
A. He had called the temple, His Father's house and the disciples
had remembered the scripture "The zeal of the Father's house
has eaten Him up."
1. The Jews are seeking a sign from Him showing by what
authority He had taken on Himself the purging of the
marketplace in the temple.
2. God had promised in the past to give them signs.
a. "The Lord shall give you a sign, behold a
virgin shall conceive and bear a Son and shall
call His name Immanuel."
b. When the angels appeared to the shepherds they
said, "And this shall be the sign unto you,
you will find the babe wrapped in swaddling
clothes and lying in a manger."
c. Paul told the Corinthians that the Jews seek a
sign. There must just be something about their
nature that they require a sign.
B. Again in chapter 6 we will find them asking Him for a sign that
they might believe Him.
C. Matthew tells us in chapter 12 that certain of the scribes and
Pharisee's came to Him and said, "We would see a sign from
You." Jesus responded that a wicked and adulterous generation
seeks after a sign, but no sign would be given to it except
that of the prophet Jonah.
1. As Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly
of the whale, so shall the Son of Man be three days
and three nights in the heart of the earth.
2. This is very similar to the sign that He gave to them
here at the beginning of His ministry.
3. They both have to do with the three days.
a. Here He says that when they destroy this
temple, He will rebuild it in three days.
b. Jonah was three days and three nights in the
belly of the whale.
c. Both signs have to do with His resurrection
from the dead.
II. The sign of His rebuilding the temple in three days.
A. They did not understand what He was saying, and had
misinterpreted it thinking that He was referring to the
temple that He had just cleansed.
1. They were chagrined at His audacity.
2. They responded that they had been building that temple
for forty six years.
a. This was very true, and even after forty six
years it was still not completed.
b. They would be working for another 20 years before the
completion.
3. They thought He was talking about the temple of Herod
that He had just cleansed.
a. Mark tells us that when Jesus was being tried
one of the witnesses against Him said that he
heard Jesus say that if they destroyed the
temple made with hands, in three days He would
build another temple made without hands.
b. This sounds a little like Paul's statement to
the Corinthians when he said, "And we know that
when this house of our earthly tabernacle is
dissolved, we have a building of God not made
with hands, eternal in the heavens." Paul was
contrasting our earthly bodies with our
heavenly bodies.
B. It is important to remember that John is writing years after
the fact and thus writes with the advantage of hindsight, so he
explains to us just what Jesus meant.
1. He said that Jesus was talking about the temple of His
body.
2. It was a prophecy of His resurrection from the dead.
3. After His resurrection they remembered this saying.
C. Jesus declared that the only sign that would be given to the
doubting world would be the resurrection.
1. This is the most powerful proof that Jesus is the
Messiah, the Son of God.
2. Christianity stands or falls on the resurrection of
Jesus from the dead.
D. Paul said, "The gospel that I preached unto you which you have
received, wherein you stand, by which you are saved, how that
Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that He
was buried, and He rose again the third day according to the
scriptures."
1. Paul asserted that without the resurrection we have no
gospel, but are still in our sins, and of all men most
miserable.
2. The death of Christ for our sins would be invalidated
if it were not for the resurrection.
3. His claims of being the Son of God, the Messiah would
all be nothing more than the empty boasts of a deluded
man.
4. All of the miracles were done by chicanery, He was
perhaps an illusionist, or perhaps there is a rational
explanation.
III. The issue of the resurrection, did Christ rise from the dead?
A. To put it very bluntly you have two choices, yes or no. You
either believe that He did or He didn't.
1. You have the story of the Jewish religious leaders that
the disciples came in the night and stole the body from
the tomb while the soldiers were sleeping.
2. You have the story of the disciples that they came to
the tomb and found it empty and then began a series of
appearances of Jesus to His followers over a period of
forty days.
3. Both stories cannot be true, you must either believe
one or the other.
B. Luke who was a Doctor and had the opportunity to personally
examine many of the eye witnesses, declared that He showed
Himself alive after His death by many infallible proofs.
1. His conclusion was that the evidence of the
resurrection was overwhelming.
2. In my opinion, it is easier to believe than not to
believe.
3. You have the testimony of men of great integrity and
strong character, men who espoused the highest moral
values, who witnessed that they saw and talked to the
risen Lord.
4. To not believe in the resurrection of Jesus takes some
incredible explanation.
a. What happened to His body?
b. Don't you think that a massive search would
have been launched to try to find the body of
Jesus.
c. Certainly the disciples were tortured and
killed for declaring that He was risen.
d. Don't you think that under this pressure one
of them would have confessed to the hoax, had
it indeed been a hoax?
C. If you do not believe in the resurrection of Jesus there is no
doubt another reason other than a careful search of all of the
evidence from which you have formed your considered opinion.
1. The truth of the matter is that basically you do not
because you do not want to believe.
2. Why would a person not want to believe?
a. The strongest reason I know is that they desire
to live a life of immorality that Jesus
strongly condemned.
b. For them to believe would require a radical
change of life style that they are unwilling to
forgo.
c. They would have to give up their drugs, or
their illicit sex, or their stealing, or
whatever else they might be doing that is
contrary to strong moral principles. They would
have to start being honest, loving, forgiving
and merciful.
d. Jesus said that those who do not believe in Him
are condemned because they love the darkness
rather than the light because their deeds are
evil.
D. Why would a person want to believe.
1. Because they have found the emptiness and frustration
that life of sin finally brings a person to.
2. They are tired of carrying around their sense of guilt
and desire forgiveness.
3. They need some reason for living beside lust and greed.
4. They desire a better life now and a hope for the
future.
E. Believe it or not, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day,
though they sought to destroy the temple of His body, on the
third day He raised it up.
1. To believe brings a hope for eternal life.
2. To not believe leaves you hopeless.
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