[Note: This is a bilingual sermon. The pastor speaks in English and the content is then rendered in Chinese by a translator. Both languages are preserved as delivered.]
Yesterday we tried to look at an outline of the events leading up to the Lord's coming. Those of you who have spent a little time studying the subject will notice that I have omitted a lot of things, and that was deliberate for various reasons. For example, very popular in North America is the reference in Ezekiel to Russia coming down from the north and invading Israel, in alliance with countries like Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq — all supposedly leading up to the battle of Armageddon in the plains of Jezreel. Any of you who have been to Israel will have seen those plains — vast, an ideal place for a conventional land battle, the kind of ground on which tank battles would be fought. I am somewhat reserved about these interpretations, and that is why I left them out.
We are even more skeptical about the popular view that China will send an enormous army of two hundred million troops towards the Middle East — an interpretation of the Greek words "myriad upon myriad" in Revelation. Two hundred million. I had a little bit of interest in military matters and I wonder if anybody has thought how you move an army of two hundred million right across two continents. And from the point of view of strict exegesis, to interpret "myriad upon myriad" as literally two hundred million is, I think, close to nonsense. I also made no reference to the European Union and its states as the new Roman Empire, or to the calculations based on the seven years and three-and-a-half years from Daniel. I say these things so that you are aware that I am fully aware of these subjects. I have deliberately left them out so we can concentrate on the general clear outline.
Even in that outline, I would say there are points which are subject to possible revision in the light of better evidence. When we speak of this important subject, it is not the right place for dogmatism. We must come with much humility, understanding that our knowledge, no matter how good, is always rather inadequate.
昨天我们试图去描绘一幅关于主再来之前事件的图画. 你们当中有些人可能发现我省去了很多的事情, 那是刻意的. 比如说在北美洲非常流行的是以西结书里面所谈到的俄罗斯从北方下来攻击以色列. 我对这些解释是有所保留的. 然后另外一个说法就是说中国会派出两亿的军队来攻打中东. 这是对启示录一段经文的解释. 我认为这种解释是近乎无稽的. 我提出这些事情, 是要你在解释关乎末世的圣经段落的时候要小心谨慎. 我们必须以谦卑的态度来处理这些题目.
And so I begin today by referring again to Luke 18:8, where the Lord Jesus says: "When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith?" He would not say something like this unless he expects that faith will be hard to find. This point is very important for us to start with today, because clearly everything depends on whether or not you truly believe what we have talked about so far.
Now, obviously, if all we have talked about is to you nothing much more than fairy tales, you are not going to bother with preparing. So talking about how to prepare for his coming is meaningless unless you believe these events are going to take place. I would like to ask you: as you have been through this far in the camp, how much of this do you really believe? Do you believe that Jesus is really coming? Let's not assume too many things. You might not even genuinely believe this — and so this camp is a complete waste of time. We can just take it as an opportunity to play some badminton.
If you don't believe, there is no meaning. If you believe about twenty percent of it, perhaps some of it registers. If you believe eighty percent — though to believe the whole package is a bit much — then when you are not sure whether to believe or not believe, you become a kind of inner deadlock. You don't know what to do. And the fact is: faith only changes you, it doesn't change any facts. If somebody came in here and said, "This building is on fire," and you didn't believe him, you would take no action. Whether you believe it or not doesn't change whether there is a fire. It only changes the course of action you will take. Whether you believe there is a God or not doesn't change the fact of whether there is a God. Your faith changes you, but it doesn't change any facts. If Jesus is coming, and you don't believe it, it won't stop him from coming. The only difference is whether you will prepare or not.
路加福音18章8节说, 人子来的时候, 遇得见世上有信德吗? 他不会说这句话, 除非他预期信心是很难找到的. 如果你不相信我们所讲的, 那么谈到怎样预备主的再来是没有意义的. 你的信心只能改变你, 不能改变事实. 无论你相信不相信耶稣会再来, 都不能阻止他的再来. 唯一的分别就是你会不会预备.
So Jesus asks: when I come, will I find faith? That rhetorical question expects the answer no. He knows us very well. He knows that most people will believe in a sort of vague sense, but not in the way he expects. Are you in that category? I am very realistic about the reality of these things. So let me share with you how I myself came to truly believe in this amazing event, so that you might see a way by which you also will truly believe.
I am still by nature a very skeptical person. I don't just accept something because somebody said it. Those who have read my testimony will know that as a very young person I was extremely rationalistic, and that made believing very difficult. There are many things in this world not accessible to our rational powers — even the greatest scientists humbly acknowledge that what they really know is very little. Spiritual things are especially hard to understand with human reason alone. If you try to read the book of Revelation without the illumination that God gives, you may quickly discover you have no idea what that book is talking about, no matter how clever you are. It can only be understood by revelation — by the capacity that God himself gives us.
我本来是一个非常怀疑的人. 我不会因为有人说什么就接受什么. 那些读过我的见证的人就知道, 当我还是一个很年轻的人的时候, 我是非常理性的, 那使我很难去相信. 属灵的事情很难用人的理智去完全地理解. 如果你尝试读启示录而没有神所给的亮光, 你很快就会发现你对那本书一窍不通. 必须靠着神所赐给我们的能力, 我们才能够慢慢地明白.
Now, to prepare practically for the coming of the Lord — the first point, which can be summed up from Romans chapter 8 verse 14: "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God." Paul is saying that the person who is led by the Spirit of God — this is the definition of what it means to be a son of God. It is not, he says, merely the person who believes in this and that doctrine, or the person who got baptized. According to Paul, those are the only true Christians there are: those who are led by the Spirit.
Why is this important? Because if you don't know what it is to be led by the Spirit, you obviously cannot truly believe in the reality of God. You can believe in God as an intellectual idea, the same kind of belief a philosopher has — he believes in an idea. And there are many Christians today whose belief in God, when examined closely, is not based on any living experience of fact but on an idea. The problem with this theoretical kind of belief is that if it is established on theory, it can be destroyed on theory. This is why people go into theological seminaries for training and lose their faith in the process — because their faith was not rooted in a living experience of God, and studying arguments against God's existence can shake theoretical belief. In fact, no philosophy can prove that God does not exist, but it can throw enough doubts into your mind to leave you as an agnostic.
The only kind of person who has no doubt about the spiritual reality of what we are talking about is the person who knows day by day what it is to be led by the Spirit. And according to the apostle Paul, those are the only true Christians there are. If you want to prepare for the coming of the Lord, start right here: learn to be led by the Spirit.
罗马书第八章第十四节说, 凡被神的灵引导的都是神的儿子. 保罗在这里说, 被神的灵引导这个事实是一个基督徒生命里面最基本的经历. 根据这个标准, 你是否是一个基督徒呢? 假如你的信心只是头脑上的理论的话, 那么这个信心可以被理论所推翻. 这就是为什么有人去了神学院之后反而失去了信心. 因为他们的信心不是建立在一个活生生的与神相遇的经历上面. 唯一对我们所说的属灵实在没有怀疑的人, 就是那些每天知道被神的灵引导的人.
Now, "led" implies that somebody is leading, and the one leading here is the Holy Spirit. And leading implies that you obey the one who leads — that you are following. To follow Jesus today means following his Spirit, because Jesus is at the right hand of the Father. The Holy Spirit in the New Testament is also called the Spirit of Christ. And to follow Jesus today means following his Spirit. It is not enough to talk about a "disciples' church" if we are not actually following Jesus through the leading of his Spirit.
And this implies coming under his kingship. God never forces his kingship upon anyone. He leads those who joyfully and humbly yield their lives to his kingship. He only leads those who come willingly. If at some point in your life you have humbled yourself before the Lord and said, "Lord, from this moment I repent of all my past rebelliousness and sin, and I yield my life to your kingship" — you have started on the road to being a true Christian. But that is only a start. There is then the constant yielding of the will to being led by him, day by day. The road gets harder and harder as you go on. For many the challenge is too great, the cost too high, and many fall by the roadside. That is why the Lord Jesus said: "Anyone who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for the kingdom of God."
被引导就意味着有人在带领. 而在这里那个带领的就是圣灵. 被引导就意味着你跟随那个带领你的. 今天跟随耶稣就是跟随耶稣的灵. 这也意味着活在他的王权底下. 神不会把他的王权强迫地加在你身上. 他只引导那些甘心乐意地把生命主权交给他的人. 假如你在某一天, 你谦卑地跪在主的面前, 把你的生命的主权交给神, 你就开始了走一个真正的基督徒的道路. 可是这只是一个开始. 然后还有就是每天的把你的意志交给神, 每天的让他的灵去引导你. 这条路越走会越困难. 对很多人来说这个挑战太大了, 代价太高了, 所以很多人中途跌倒了.
# Steps in Preparation for His Coming (Part B) — Steps 1–5: Kingship, Gospel, Church, Singleness, Possessions, and the Witness of Wang Mingdao
[Note: This is a bilingual sermon. The pastor speaks in English and the content is then rendered in Chinese by a translator. Both languages are preserved as delivered.]
Step one in preparing for the coming of the King is to start living under his kingship now — just from now. If you are not willing to live under his kingship now, I don't believe a word you say when you claim you are ready to welcome the coming of the King. Stop fooling yourself. If you are not willing to live under his kingship now, the truth is you don't want to see him at all. A large number of Christians, as the scripture says, will be trying to hide themselves from the face of the Lamb when he comes.
This is very interesting, even among those who join full-time training. Towards the end of training I say to them: you can now make your proposals as to where you would like to serve the Lord. And they start worrying — I wonder if we are going to be sent to Iceland, or the jungles of Congo. We want to be led, but not led too much. At least lead us in the way we particularly like to go — where the weather is quite good, where the people are relatively polite. But what if the Spirit of the Lord doesn't want to lead you there?
You see what the Lord said to Peter: now you go where you want to go, but the day is coming where you'll be taken to where you don't want to go. Peter was led to where he didn't particularly want to go. He was led to be crucified. Before you get crucified, there are still other things you might not want to do — for example, the Lord did say that you are to go into all the world and preach the gospel.
第一点重新讲一次: 就是要预备主的到来, 是从现在开始活在他的王权底下. 假如你不愿意活在他的王权底下, 其实你不是想见他. 很多的基督徒, 当主来的时候, 会试图从羔羊面前逃跑. 就好像主对彼得说, 有一天你会被带到你不愿意去的地方. 彼得就是被带到他不愿意去的地方 — 他是被钉死的.
Step two is to preach the gospel. So urgent is this task in the light of the Lord's return that nothing else has precedence. Luke 9:60 says a certain person wanted to be a disciple of the Lord and said: let me go and first bury my father. The Lord Jesus said: no — go and preach the gospel. Burying one's father is one of the most important human duties, and the Lord Jesus never denied how important it is. But there is something even more important. The task of bringing the gospel to the ends of the earth is for the church to carry out, and Matthew 24 says: this gospel of the kingdom must be preached to the ends of the earth, and then shall come the end.
Think about how many of you are involved in preaching the gospel at this point in time. Most of us are not engaged in this activity at all. If you are led by the Spirit, would you not do what the Lord requires? How would the Spirit lead you except in accordance with his own instructions? If you dare to let him lead you, he will lead you into witnessing — who knows where in the world.
I can tell you exciting stories of how the Lord has led me to witness to people I have never seen or known before. When I was a student in London, I was about to sit down at my table to study. The Lord said — halfway down into my seat, halfway down, notice that — Get up. I am sending you to the central YMCA. It was approaching nine o'clock, and I started arguing with the Lord. It was a bit late; it was a long way down to central London, fifty minutes on my motorcycle. Finally I said, okay, and I got on my motorcycle and off I went.
All the way down I was thinking: Lord, who am I supposed to see anyway? When I got to the YMCA, I located one of our church members staying there and asked him if he was having some spiritual problem. He said no. I thought: Lord, what did you send me here for? Then while I was talking with him, the Lord said to me: look to the door. I turned to the revolving door of the central YMCA, and somebody was walking through. The Lord said: talk to that man. I had never seen him before, and I am not in the habit of accosting people I don't know.
So I went up to this man who had just come in through the door and said: do you need any help? To my surprise, he said yes. He was a Chinese man from Taiwan, on his way to the United Nations in Geneva, and he was in London just for those two days. He came to the Lord the next day. The timing had to be absolutely perfect. Had I not listened to the leading of the Spirit, how would he have come to the Lord? Two days later he went off to Geneva, rejoicing in the Lord.
For someone for whom this kind of experience is normal, do you not think that God is real? I could not deny it if I tried. If one day somebody held a gun to my head and said: is Jesus real to you? If he is real to you, I'm going to pull this trigger — I would still have to say: go ahead, because I cannot deny what I know to be true. I served the Lord in England for five years without taking one cent in salary. I refused to accept it, not because the church didn't want to give it — most of the church didn't even know I was not accepting a salary. When I left to go to a new work in Canada, some discovered that in five years I had never taken the salary. We do these things because God is real. If God is not real to you, you won't do this kind of thing.
The third thing we are led to do by the Spirit is to build up his church in preparation for his coming. We are all involved in this — not just the full-time workers. In 1 Corinthians 12 to 14 in particular, Paul has a lot to say to the Corinthian church about how to build one another up. If you go somewhere to preach the gospel, a church will start to form, and then you will need to build it up — person by person, encouraging them to build each other up.
By building up the church, I am not talking about various activities. Those are all useful and valuable. But when Paul speaks about building up the church, the gifts of the Spirit he lists are not about cooking beautiful meals for special occasions. What you need to learn is to encourage and build up one another spiritually — to encourage the other person when he is down, to provide friendship and counsel, to care physically but above all spiritually. One of the things most needed in the spiritual life is encouragement. The road is so difficult, and we are very poor at this ministry of encouraging.
Now, with much hesitation, I go to the less acceptable subjects. The kind of thing that few preachers want to talk about. How to prepare for the Lord's coming — do you really want to hear? Step four concerns the question of singleness. 1 Corinthians 7:26-27 — Paul says: in view of the present crisis, it is better for a person to remain as he is. What present crisis? The period between the first coming and the second coming of the Lord Jesus is the period of crisis — the crisis of this present age in rebellion against the Lord.
Paul says that he who is single is not distracted — he can give his whole attention to the Lord. The married person must consider how to please his spouse. Paul worries that the devotion of the married person to the Lord will to a significant degree be affected. Of course Paul also says: if you are already married, he is not saying you should separate. But if you are not yet married, in view of the present distress, perhaps you would do well to remain as you are.
I am not arguing that marriage is wrong. But we must be willing to be led by the Spirit — whether to marry or not to marry. In view of the present crisis, it is likely, not absolutely necessary, but likely that he may lead you to remain single for a season. When you become the pastor of a church, there are often practical reasons why it becomes necessary to be married — so that there is someone to help the sisters when it is not appropriate for you as a brother to do so. So perhaps at the beginning of the church the Lord may lead you to remain single, and then later lead you to marry. The point is simply that we must be willing to be led by the Spirit in this matter too.
The fifth point — equally unpalatable, equally hard to swallow. Go and sell all that you have. Who said that? Not me — Jesus said so, and he said it in more than one place. Luke 12:32-34: the Lord says, do not be afraid, it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. But before you get too happy about receiving the kingdom, look at the next verse: sell your possessions and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out — an unfailing treasure in heaven.
The rationale behind selling one's possessions has to do with this present age and the crisis in it. You know when Hong Kong was about to be taken over in 1997, what happened in the years preceding the takeover? Hong Kong people in multitudes were selling their possessions. You would have thought they all of a sudden became disciples of the Lord. Many of them had big houses, beautiful cars, lands. They sold all this to go to Canada — the best country in the world according to the United Nations, six years running. But like so many Christians, they wanted the best of both worlds: they got rid of possessions in Hong Kong but kept a foothold there — a smaller house, a business — just in case things were not so bad after all. We still operate according to worldly wisdom rather than the leading of the Spirit.
This selling of possessions must not be an act of fanaticism or rashness — it must be a calm, carefully considered, well-planned move under the leading of the Holy Spirit. Unless we are prepared to let the kingship of the Lord apply to our possessions, to say that he is King of our lives is sheer hypocrisy. If I say, Lord, you are king of my life, but don't touch my bank account — when we meet the Lord Jesus, he will say: did you say I was king? But you never let me touch your bank account.
The first reason behind selling is that our possessions cut off our mobility. Our house, our land, our car, our this and that — we don't want to leave these behind, so we are no longer able to move. To preach the gospel wherever the Spirit sends you, you must be completely mobile. And this is why so many brothers and sisters are not able to go anywhere and have to rationalize by saying: I just witness to my neighbor — as though the Lord had sent you to your neighbor.
Now I come back to the key words: led by the Spirit. This selling of possessions must be under the leading of the Holy Spirit. You may discover that for one or two years the Lord tells you nothing about your money. But one day he suddenly says: I want this part to go there, that part to go here. And there is one more very important factor. When a person is about to die, he writes his will. He distributes his property, knowing he cannot take it with him. Yesterday I told you that preparing for the Lord's coming also means preparing to die. Write your will — have it ready.
最后一点就是变卖所有的 — 路加福音12章32到34节. 这个不是疯狂地一次全部变卖, 而是在圣灵带领下有计划地处理我们的财产. 这个也包括写好遗嘱, 因为预备主到来就包括预备死亡.
Then in Revelation 17, verses 5 to 6: I saw a woman drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus. In Revelation, blood refers to the blood of the saints — those who bore witness and laid down their lives. The picture is of Babylon — which represents this fallen world. But notice: Babylon in Scripture also refers to those who were once God's people but turned away from him and became unfaithful. Who pressured the Romans to crucify the Lord Jesus? It was not the Romans who had the power — it was those who were God's people and yet betrayed him. So you see, at the end of the age, it will not only be the non-Christian world that is against those who remain true. Those Christians who refuse to live under God's kingship — who say "Lord is King" with their mouths but whose lives betray everything God has taught — they are the ones who will be against you.
在启示录17章5到6节, 约翰看见那个女人喝醉了圣徒的血. 这个巴比伦不但是代表这个不信主的世界, 也代表那些曾经是神的子民但是背离神的人. 谁是我们真正的敌人? 就是那些口头上说主是王, 可是生命里面拒绝活在神的王权底下的基督徒.
I remember when I was a young man in Beijing, I heard Wang Mingdao preach. He was standing on the platform — this was in 1955 — and he knew the Communist Party was about to arrest him. He said: if I have this privilege — this privilege of suffering for the Lord — I consider it my highest honor. He was right. Two weeks later he was arrested. He was imprisoned for twenty years. Then my wife and I had the privilege, in 1990, of visiting him in Shanghai when he was ninety years old. Though ninety, his mind was still quite clear, and his faithfulness to the Lord and his love for the Lord had not diminished in the slightest. About a year later he went to be with the Lord.
Here was a man who knew all his life what it was to be led by the Spirit of God. He also truly was faithful unto death. I hope you too can have this experience — to experience the reality of God, to be led moment by moment by his Spirit. Pursue this one thing, and the other four points I have mentioned will fall into place. When you have experienced the leading of God, and the reality of God is to you beyond all doubt — then the question of whether to marry or remain single will no longer be a threat to you; the command to sell possessions will not seem so difficult; when called to lay down your life for the Lord, you will not be so afraid. Start right here — being led by the Spirit — and you will be prepared for his coming. Let us pray together.
我还记得当我年轻的时候, 在北京听到王明道的讲道. 那是1955年, 他知道共产党快要来抓他. 他站在讲台上说, 假如我有这个福分为主受苦, 我觉得这是我最高的荣耀. 他没有说错 — 两个星期以后他就被抓了, 被关在牢里面二十年. 然后我和我的妻子在1990年在上海见到他. 那时候他已经90岁了, 可是他对主的忠心和爱心丝毫不减. 大约一年以后他就去世了. 他一生里面知道什么是被神的灵引导, 他也真的对主忠心到底. 我也希望你能够有这个经历 — 从被圣灵引导开始, 其他的四点都会各就其位. 让我们一起祷告.
# Is That All There Is? — Truth, Resurrection, and the Challenge to Remain True — Easter Sermon (Part A)
[Note: This sermon appears to have been misfiled under the 1999 camp series. Internal content — 1985 suicide statistics, BBC news from "the 16th of April," and explicit reference to "Easter day today" — indicates this is an Easter sermon, most likely from April 1987. Both this file and 834a appear to contain the same or a closely parallel recording of the same sermon.]
A few weeks ago, four young people drove a car into a garage. Two girls were 16 and 17 years old; two boys were 18 and 19. One of the boys owned the car. They drove into an abandoned garage, closed the door, but did not switch off the engine. They opened the car windows and sat inside. The carbon monoxide level in the garage kept rising, and one hour later they were all dead.
This group suicide caught the attention of people across the United States. There are four things about this suicide that causes us to think. First, suicide is something we find very hard to handle mentally — most people are afraid to die. But the remarkable thing is that suicide is a deliberate choice to die. These young people chatted and talked until they were all dead. There was no terror, no fear.
The second thing unique about this event is that normally, suicide is committed by one person. But four young people, really of their own choice, agreed — as it were in a pledge — to die together. The third thing is that they were not poor. They were not dying of cancer or facing some unbearable pain. One of them even owned the car, which many young people only dream of. They had money, they had boyfriends and girlfriends — they had what many young people desire. And yet they died. It seems that for them, the only meaning they could find in life was to be found in death.
The fourth thing we have to notice is this: if you think suicide among healthy, normal young people is rare, you have not looked at the statistics. I will tell you the statistics for the United States in 1985 — for young people between the ages of 15 and 23. The number is 26,400 in one year alone. We have over 260 people in this hall — that means in 1985 alone, one hundred times the number of people in this hall, young people, died by their own hands. If we add all the people who successfully committed suicide in 1985 in the United States — of all ages — we are talking about 53,000 people who died by their own hands. And the suicide rate has tripled — gone up 300% — in the last 30 years in the United States.
A few days ago I was in a library and a book caught my eye. The title was Attempted Suicide. I thought it was a novel, but when I picked it up I saw it was published by Oxford University Press and written by the psychiatric staff of the Department of Psychiatry in Oxford University. It was published in 1982. The book mentions that in the United Kingdom there are 100,000 people who attempt suicide every year. The highest reason for emergency hospital admission in the United Kingdom today for women is attempted suicide.
Can we grasp the situation? We have mentioned only two countries, and we are talking about tens of thousands of cases. It is quite obvious: people deliberately don't want to live anymore. They have lost the will to live. But why? Because they have nothing to live for. The things that interest you don't interest them. Give them money — they don't want money. Give them a boyfriend or a girlfriend — they already had that. What do we really want? Truth. Without truth, there is nothing to live for.
A famous singer once sang a very sad song — and I believe in the end she committed suicide as well. The song was entitled "Is That All There Is?" I remember that song coming over and over again on the radio. Is that all there is? Is that all there is in life? The things that interest you don't interest a lot of people. Give us truth — or we die.
I must say that my heart is touched by these young people. It is my view that these people who committed suicide, far from being the worst sinners in the world, are some of the finest young people there are. Why do I say that? Because precisely these young people were not interested in the transient garbage of this world. Have you noticed when pop stars come out, the girls are fainting and the boys are screaming? You look at this guy who hasn't combed his hair for ten days and wonder why they are so crazy about him. But they have to find something to live for. They can't find truth, so even a pop idol will do for a while. But those who could see through all this garbage and found nothing left to live for — these are some of the finest young people who took their life.
The church has failed to proclaim the truth to them. I tell you, on judgment day we will answer for it. And I say to you, if you are parents: you better find something to live for yourself — otherwise your sons and daughters also don't find anything to live for. The next suicide could be your son or your daughter. Those parents also thought it could never happen to them. Can you imagine the shock of discovering that the one who committed suicide was your son, your daughter?
I spend all this time to impress on you the fact that when we talk about truth, we are talking about life and death. The Lord Jesus said: I am the way, the truth and the life. You see how truth and life cannot be separated. Jesus said I am the truth. But we can all say this kind of thing. How do we know he is the truth? Is there some way to establish this?
I want to tell you there are many ways to establish the truth about Jesus, but I'm going to concentrate on one because it is Easter day today. In the Old Testament, principles were laid down so the people could tell who is speaking the truth and who is not. I read from Deuteronomy chapter 18. In this passage, Moses says that one day there is going to come a prophet like himself — the prophet that Israel is looking for, the savior that is to come. There was no prophet greater than Moses in the history of Israel. But God said to Israel: in the last days, I will raise up a prophet like Moses. How are we going to know that he is the savior, the king of Israel?
Verse 21: how may we know the word which the Lord has not spoken? Verse 22: when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word which the Lord has not spoken. In other words, if the prophet says something will happen and it doesn't happen, he told a lie. It is not true. Now let us apply this principle to Jesus.
Some of you may be skeptical of what we are talking about. Christians are living in the clouds. The Lord Jesus says you will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven. He's going to come in an aeroplane? A helicopter? Some kind of spacecraft? What is all this about? Have you seen anybody riding in the clouds? And we are also talking about resurrection. The Sadducees were grinning when Jesus said: after three days he will rise from the dead. Oh yes, so tell us more about this fairy tale. Have you seen anybody rise from the dead? These Christians are talking about fairy tales all day long. The truth is stranger than fiction — that's a well-known saying. Jesus said: I am the truth. I am the resurrection and the life. Those are big words, my friend. And now I'll try to prove it.
He certainly doesn't expect us to believe the truth without evidence. How can you talk about truth without evidence? So Jesus said: I am going to give you the evidence. Let's read Matthew chapter 12. Notice this is what he says to his enemies. The Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus and asked for a sign — give us some evidence. And the Lord says in verse 40: For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
You know what happened to Jonah. Jonah was swallowed up by the great fish, and three days later he emerged again alive. Jesus is saying: I am going to be in the grave, in the earth, for three days and three nights, and after that I will rise again. And in case they didn't understand, he repeats it one more time a little while later — in Matthew 16:4, to the same enemies, including the Sadducees who don't believe in the resurrection. To the very people who don't believe in the resurrection, he says: I am going to give you the sign of the prophet Jonah. Every Jew understood perfectly what that meant. In three days, he says, I will rise again.
Now, what if he had said: I am going to rise again one of these days — I don't know when? You don't know when to check. A year goes by, ten years go by, the grave is still there. But Jesus said: you don't have to wait for five years, not three years, not three months, not three weeks — three days. You watch my tomb. And that is exactly what they did. The Pharisees are not stupid. They remembered what was written in Deuteronomy. They knew how to test a prophet.