Joseph's Empty Tomb: Three Crucial Questions, Part 2

Driving home: You cannot shake. The pressure of those ultimate questions.

Martin uses the analogy of lying in bed at night, with hands and mind unoccupied, as the time when life's 'ultimate questions' naturally press upon one's consciousness, distinguishing them from daily trivial concerns.

What answers does the resurrection of Jesus give to the ultimate questions of life? Now what do I mean by the ultimate questions of life? Well I'm simply using that terminology to try to categorize the kinds of questions you and I ask when we're lying on our beds at night and of necessity our hands are not occupied with busyness, our minds not occupied with other things, and the great questions begin to press in upon our consciousness. What is life all about?

7:32 - 8:13 Read in full sermon

Driving home: You cannot shake. The pressure of those ultimate questions.

He contrasts trivial questions like 'Did she notice me?' or 'What car shall we buy?' with ultimate questions like 'What must I do to be saved?' to highlight the eternal significance of the latter.

Is this life all there is? Or it may be, the question that is haunting us is the very question that that jailer asked who seeing the power of God and hearing something of the gospel of God's grace from the servants of God imprisoned there at Philippi cried out, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? You see the ultimate questions are not did she or did he notice me at school today? Or what shall I wear when I go to this event or that event or what car shall we buy when our bucket of bolts is wearing out and needs to be traded in?

8:30 - 9:10 Read in full sermon

Driving home: You cannot shake. The pressure of those ultimate questions.

Martin compares humans to cats, dogs, and cows, arguing that humans, as image-bearers of God, possess an inherent dignity that prevents them from fully suppressing ultimate questions, unlike animals.

And if I'm not right with Him, how can I be made right with Him? These are life's ultimate questions. And try as you may, I don't care if the most hardened sinner is here tonight, you cannot totally subdue those ultimate questions. Given the slightest chance, they will press in upon you because you know in your heart of hearts you are something of a different order from your cat that lives and meows and licks your leg and rubs against you and dies and is buried.

9:28 - 10:01 Read in full sermon

The point: Don't put your hand over the mouth of an accusing conscience; rather run to Golgotha and to the garden tomb.

He quotes John Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress,' describing Christian's burden of sin falling off his back at the sight of the cross and rolling into the sepulcher, illustrating the experience of finding pardon and rest in Christ's finished work.

you into judgment not only for every deed and every word but according to Romans 2 16 he will judge you according to the thoughts of your heart don't put your hand over the mouth of an accusing conscience rather run to Golgotha and to the garden tomb take your guilty conscience where Bunyan Cook is perhaps some of you have already thought of this from the pilgrim's progress now I saw in my dream that the highway up which Christian was to go was fenced in on either side with a wall that was called salvation up this way therefore did burden Christian run

24:07 - 24:51 Read in full sermon

Driving home: A pardoned but chained sinner is not recognized in the Bible. Whom God pardons, he releases to become his bond slave.

Martin uses the devil's logic of 'let's let sin abound so grace may super abound' (raising sin to 10,000 feet for grace to go to 15,000) to illustrate the antinomian misunderstanding of God's grace, which Paul refutes in Romans 6.

Now then, someone reasons with the devil's logic. Wait a minute, Paul. Now you've said that because our salvation rests completely on the doing, the dying, the resurrection of another, that where sin abounds, God's grace super abounds, and there is no mountain of sin so high that it cannot be leveled on the basis of what Christ has done for sinners. That's right.

34:49 - 35:12 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: This section confronts the sobering reality of death and decay, using personal reflection on his mother and an aloe vera plant. Martin turns to Romans 8:11 and 1 Corinthians 15 to…

He tells a personal story about an aloe vera plant that will likely outlive him, using it as a humbling illustration of human mortality and the question of whether a human's God-given potential ends in the grave while a plant thrives.

And it's this question that sooner or later all of us have to face. And it's the question, will my body and the bodies of my life and my loved ones be forever left in the grave? It's a sobering thing when I sit in my study. I look over at the long, like a credenza file cabinet that's under the double windows on the side of my study.

43:10 - 43:36 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: This section confronts the sobering reality of death and decay, using personal reflection on his mother and an aloe vera plant. Martin turns to Romans 8:11 and 1 Corinthians 15 to…

Martin reflects on his 87-year-old mother's vibrant personality and engagement with life, expressing the difficulty of picturing her dead and buried, which underscores the ultimate question of bodily resurrection.

I think of my 87-year-old mother and I can't picture her dead. She's so unwell. She's alive, spiritually, mentally, psychologically, interested in everything that passes her field of awareness. If you wonder where I get some of my quirkiness, I get it from my mother.

45:19 - 45:40 Read in full sermon

The point: The child of God no longer looks upon death as a dreaded intruder but a necessary discipline in one of the stages of his salvation in Christ.

He addresses the question of how God resurrects bodies from disintegrated dust by comparing it to God's creation of galaxies by His word, arguing that for the God of Genesis 1:1, reconstituting atoms is 'no big deal.'

and was talking to her dad this morning and the dad put in a plug to address this so I'm complying with the dad's request you see if you request you just might get your request filled but you gotta do it before I start preaching alright and so he said say something about this matter what happens there's a body goes into the grave hundred years later bulldozer comes and bulldozes the whole area and the graves are all disintegrated the worms have eaten it decomposed now may be part of an animal somewhere may be part of a tree somewhere else how does God resurrect the body you know my answer to t...

55:15 - 56:00 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: This section confronts the sobering reality of death and decay, using personal reflection on his mother and an aloe vera plant. Martin turns to Romans 8:11 and 1 Corinthians 15 to…

Martin uses the analogy of a seed transforming into a beautiful flower, or an acorn into an oak tree, to illustrate the vast difference between the buried body and its resurrected form, as Paul does in 1 Corinthians 15.

With God, all things are possible. And then what Paul does in that passage, I'll give you a little clue. He said, just look around at you. What similarity is there between that beautiful flower that is already blossoming in your backyard with the coming of spring and the seed that was put in the ground?

57:35 - 57:54 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin addresses the innate human awareness of accountability, validating it through Jesus' words in John 5 about all in the tombs hearing His voice and coming forth for…

He references Jesus calling Lazarus from the tomb, suggesting that Jesus called his name specifically to prevent everyone in the vicinity from rising, illustrating the power of Christ's voice to summon the dead.

The voice that stood by the tomb of Lazarus and said, Lazarus, come forth. Lazarus, come forth. Lazarus, come forth. Lazarus, come forth.

61:23 - 61:33 Read in full sermon