This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you to Day 2 of our look together through Mark chapter 16, the
resurrection chapter, last chapter of the Gospel of Mark. Yesterday we looked at
this story through the eyes of the women who were there that first day. Today
I'd like to look at this resurrection account through the eyes of an historian.

The Bible tells us in Mark chapter 16 that there was an angel that appeared to
the women and he said in verse 6, "Don't be alarmed. You're looking for Jesus
the Nazarene who was crucified. He has risen.

He is not here. See the place where they laid him. " Those are the historical
facts of what happened on that day.

And that history changed history. We count our history today by what happened on
that day, by Jesus' life coming into this world. The very fact of Jesus coming
into this world changed everything about history.

But there are some today who look back, because it was so long ago, and think,
"Did it really happen? Can I really count on this? " So I want to take a look
today at the resurrection from the chair of an historian and the accuracy of
what happened on that day.

Now I'm not an historian, although I do love history. So I'm going to be quoting
from quite a number of people today, seeing what they had to say, historians had
to say, about the resurrection of Jesus Christ and how you can count on the fact
that this fact happened in human history. Wilbur Smith once said, "The meaning
of the resurrection is a theological matter.

The fact is an historical matter. " So what about the history of it? What about
the historical witness to the resurrection?

So the gospel writers, Mark and Luke, Matthew and John, they are the first
church historians. And Luke, the first church historian who wrote not only the
history of Jesus, but also the history of the early church in the book of Acts,
writes in Acts chapter 1 verse 3 that Jesus presented himself alive by many
convincing truths. Peter, one of the early witnesses to the resurrection of
Christ, says in Acts chapter 2 verse 32 We are all witnesses of the
resurrection, talking about all the disciples.

We all saw it. And maybe the greatest historical witness to the resurrection is
the changed lives of these early apostles. These men who were devastated, they'd
run away, they were living in fear of their lives, and all of a sudden they are
leading this movement that overwhelms the world, that overwhelms the world in
that day and still is doing so today.

What happened to them? How did their hearts change so dramatically? They changed
dramatically because Jesus Christ is alive.

Now as you and I look at the history of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, there
are many people who talk about how you and I can count on that history. I just
want to walk through that with you a little bit today, a different kind of study
and drive time devotions. Wilbur Smith, who we talked about earlier, says this,
"We know more about the details of the hours immediately before and the actual
death of Jesus than we know about the death of any other one man in all the
ancient world.

" So this isn't some fable where you're just hearing legends, you're seeing the
details of exactly what happened on that day. The names of the governors, the
names of the trial, those that were involved in the trial, the places that this
happened. And as you look at all of those details, those are the details of
history.

Professor by the name of Fleming said this, "It is impossible that such a book
describing events that occurred about 30 or 40 years previously, the Book of
Mark, could have been accepted and cherished if the stories of abnormal events
in it were false or mythical. " Now for instance, let me just give an example.
Would you, let's say you picked up a book that purported to be history and said
that John F.

Kennedy really hadn't been shot, that he really had lived, it was somebody else
that had been shot on that day. If you read a book like that, you would say,
"Well, where is the proof? " And if there was no proof, you would soundly and
with good reason denounce that book.

Well, here are the Gospel writers writing about the resurrected Jesus Christ. If
it hadn't happened, nobody would have believed it. It did happen.

Frank Morrison, a lawyer, famously set out to write a book about Jesus' great
life which would disregard what he called the fable of the resurrection. And so
he studied the facts, and as he studied the facts of the resurrection, he
eventually wrote a different book. The title of chapter one of this different
book that he wrote was the book that refused to be written.

Because as he studied the facts of the resurrection, he found out they couldn't
be discounted. They were historically true. Lee Strobel, another lawyer, set out
to disprove the facts of Christianity.

And in the same way, his book came out differently. And in the end, his book was
called The Case for Christ. It was a lawyer's defense for the fact that the
resurrection is a fact that happened in human history.

Sir Edward Clark, a judge, said this, "Over and over again in the High Court, I
have secured the verdict on evidence not nearly so compelling. As a lawyer, I
accept the resurrection unreservedly as the testimony of truthful men to facts
that they were able to substantiate. " And so when you struggle with doubts
about the resurrection, when you hear others struggling with doubts about the
resurrection, where do those doubts come from?

The first question you have to ask is, do those doubts come from the facts, or
are they coming from something else? Some reason I don't want to believe in the
resurrection, some struggle I'm having over the resurrection. We're going to
talk about that more in just a moment.

Let's continue to talk about what different people have said over the years,
historians, about the facts of the resurrection. Professor Edwin Selwyn said,
"The fact that Christ rose from the dead on the third day, that fact seems as
secure as historical evidence can possibly make it. " Professor Thomas Arnold,
who wrote The History of Rome, who was chairman of history at Oxford, wrote
this, "I have been used for many years to study the histories of other times and
to examine and weigh the evidence of those who have written about them.

And I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better
and fuller evidence of every sort. " So when somebody just off the top of their
head says, "Oh, I don't believe in the fact of Jesus' death and resurrection,"
they're just saying it off the top of their head. And according to this
professor of history from Oxford, they may as well just as well say all the
other facts of history that we all believe in are just as false.

The truth is, historically, the fact of Jesus' resurrection is proven. Brooke
Westcott, a Cambridge professor, said it this way, "There is no historic
incident better or more variously supported than the resurrection of Christ.
Nothing but the antecedent assumption that it must be false could have suggested
the idea or the deficiency of the proof of it.

Jesus is a part of history. In the Encyclopedia Britannica, following a
discussion of the writings about Jesus outside of the New Testament, here is the
statement that is made in the Encyclopedia. These independent accounts prove
that in ancient times even the opponents of Christianity never doubted the
historicity of Jesus, which was disputed for the first time and on inadequate
grounds by several authors at the end of the 18th, during the 19th, and at the
beginning of the 20th centuries.

H. G. Wells, not a believer in Christ, personalizes the historical foundation of
Jesus' life.

Listen to what he said. "More than 1,900 years later," which was the time when
Wells wrote, "More than 1,900 an historian like myself, who doesn't even call
himself a Christian, finds the picture centering irresistibly around the life
and character of this most significant man. The historian's test of an
individual's greatness is, what did he leave to grow?

Did he start men to thinking along fresh lines with a vigor that persisted after
him? By this test, Jesus stands first. " As we look at these facts of history,
what we see is this.

Jesus really lived. Jesus really died. And Jesus really rose from the dead on
the third day.

I can think of no better expression of the personal impact that those events of
Jesus' life have on my life, on your life, than in that most familiar Bible
verses, John 3. 16. What is this history all about?

Here's what it's all about. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his one
and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal
life. " Because Jesus lived, you and I who trust him have life, abundant life,
eternal life.

Because Jesus was raised from the dead, he wants to give me new life. What an
indescribable gift. The question is, have you received that gift?

As you're listening to this story of the resurrection, this truth, this history
of the resurrection, there's no better time to receive that gift than right now.
Just say to him, "Jesus Christ, I receive your gift. I receive your gift of new
life, the kind of life that only you can give.

I received your resurrected life, trusting you to forgive me, trusting you to
guide me. Thank you, Jesus, that you really lived, that you really died, and
that you really are alive. I really want to follow you.

In your name I pray, amen. " Join us tomorrow. We're going to continue to look
at the resurrection.

Tomorrow we're going to look from the chair of the skeptic.