Just As He Said

JUST AS HE SAID

Matthew 28:1-8

Introduction: Five people showed up. Five! Four women and one elderly gentlemen was all that showed up in a concert hall which could easily seat 1,800 people. His name was William Brown. He was a world-class tenor, twice performed at Carnegie Hall. On this occasion, around 1968-69, he was to perform at Howard University in Washington D.C. Two days prior to the concert chaos broke loose. Confusion, racial riots, picketing, vandalism and violence everywhere, and the night of the concert it began to rain! The atmosphere and the streets in Washington were so severe no one would go out. Even the musical critics canceled. The pianist went to William Brown and said, "Look, five people are out there. They look lost in that huge auditorium. Let’s just go home!" To which William Brown responded, "No! I have made a promise that I will sing and I’m going to sing." And sing he did for five people! He made a promise. He made a contract. He made an agreement. It is said that one’s character can be measured by the degree to which one keeps promises. He made a promise and he kept it! The problem that we find is so often that people follow another adage – promises are made to be broken. The result is that we often find it very difficult to believe people or to place our confidence in them. They let us down. Do you ever have a problem taking people at their word? Today, I want to tell you there is One who never breaks His word; who always does just as He says! His track record is impeccable. His very name is Truth – the Lord Jesus Christ!

I. He said He would rise from the garden tomb – and He did just as He said!

A. At least three times Christ told His disciples that He would die and that He would rise again after three days and three nights.

B. After Peter’s confess that Jesus was the Christ in Mark 8 we read in verse 31 that “he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.”

C. In Mark 9:9, when Christ was transfigured before Peter, James, and John, “He charged them that they should tell no man what things they had seen, till the Son of man were risen from the dead.”

D. Again in Mark 10:32b-34 we read, “… And he took again the twelve, and began to tell them what things should happen unto him, saying, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be delivered unto the chief priests, and unto the scribes; and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him to the Gentiles: and they shall mock him, and shall scourge him, and shall spit upon him, and shall kill him: and the third day he shall rise again.

E. Matthew 28:5-6 "And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come; see the place where the Lord lay."

II. He said He would not leave us comfortless but would send another Comforter – and He did just as He said!

A. Christ said that He was going to return to His Father in heaven, but that in returning He would not leave us comfortless.

B. John 14:1-2 "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you." 16-18a: "And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it sees him not, neither knows him: but ye know him; for he dwells with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless…"

C. As Christ was caught up into heaven he said in Acts 1:8, "But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth."

D. Just as He said in Acts 2:2-4 we read, “And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost…”