OPEN: About 10 years ago, during a Homicide trial in Nassau County in the state of New York, the prosecution was examining their witness on the stand. In his testimony, the witness stated that he saw the victim lying on the ground, obviously dead.
When the prosecution had finished, the defense lawyer rose to his feet intent on undermining the credibility of the witness. and conducted the following cross-examination:
"Sir, are you a doctor?"
"No," replied the witness.
"Well, are you a paramedic?"
"No, I’m not," the witness stated.
"Have you ever gone to medical school?"
"Never," was the answer.
"Then tell me, sir, how do you know that the victim was indeed dead?"
"Well," responded the witness, "I went to his funeral."
APPLY: In every Crime Scene Investigation, it’s hard to beat the value of eyewitnesses
Now, it is a fact that witnesses can often disagree on some significant details of a crime, but when large numbers of eyewitnesses tell you the same thing over and over it’s a pretty good indication that what they say they’ve seen is true.
The Bible recognizes this fact.
In Deuteronomy 19 we’re told: “One witness is not enough to convict a man accused of any crime or offense he may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.” Deuteronomy 19:15
This concept was so central to Biblical reasoning that, when Paul confronted the church at Corinth about problems they had there, he told them:
"Every matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses." 2 Corinthians 13:1
I. And so it’s not surprising to find that Jesus built His church upon the foundation of a multitude of witnesses.
After Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, the Apostles sensed a need to find a replacement for Judas. Peter cited references from the Old Testament explaining why they should do this & then said: “… it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from John’s baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. For one of these must become a WITNESS with us of his resurrection." Acts 1:21-22
In other words whoever was going to replace Judas as one of the 12 had to be an eyewitness – not just of His resurrection - but of every thing Jesus had done from His baptism by John ALL THE WAY thru His ministry until His death, burial and resurrection. Only two men met that criteria. What that reveals to us is the significance the apostles placed on the importance of eyewitness accounts.
When Luke wrote his gospel he stressed how important he felt 1st hand accounts were for his book::
“Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who were from the first EYEWITNESSES and servants of the word.” Luke 1:1-2
Later, when he composed his story about the church (the Book of Acts) Luke wrote these words:
“In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. After his suffering, he showed himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.” Acts 1:3
Very subtly, Luke is telling his friend Theophilus that the eyewitnesses he’s used for his book didn’t just see the risen Jesus once… they saw him several times over a period of 40 days.
So, when Paul writes about the story of Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection, you can sense that he is telling of witnesses of the resurrection that he’s already spoken to himself.
He says that Jesus “appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve.
After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.
Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.”
Essentially, Paul is saying:
“Hey, there are over 500 witnesses who saw the risen Christ. If you don’t believe me… if you have any doubts… if you have any questions… go talk to one of them.”
II. How do we know what these witnesses saw?
Well, a few of them wrote books.
One of those witnesses had once been a tax collector before he met Jesus. He was an educated man who wrote down the things that he’d heard and observed, and he wrote a book we call the Gospel of Matthew.
Then there was the man who once made his living working for his father. He apparently came from a fairly wealthy family because his dad owned the boat and he had servants. This man was one of Jesus’ closest disciples and he was privy to conversations and miracles the others never saw nor heard. His was the last Gospel that was written and he told things that aren’t in the other three. His name was John… and he wrote the Gospel that bears his name.
Then there is The Gospel of Mark was written by a young man who was a friend and companion of the Apostle Peter. Because of close connection to this early leader of the church, Mark was able to write down the remembrances of that great Apostle and preacher.
And of course the Gospel of Luke (which we’ve talked about earlier) was written by a Doctor who was also a companion of the Apostle Paul. And Luke… as we’ve noticed earlier, worked very hard to interview people like…
· Mary the mother of Jesus
· Lazarus
· Zacchaeus
· Joseph of Arimathea
· And many of the original apostles.
The Gospels are all first hand accounts by eyewitnesses who actually saw and heard Jesus
III. Now, of late, people have tried to tell us that there were “OTHER” Gospels
Just before Easter, the Media made a great deal about “The Gospel of Judas”. Many so-called scholars claimed that this gave us “new” information about Jesus that we hadn’t had before, but most Christians have simply scoffed at this “great” discovery.
The early church knew (and we know as well) that this so-called Gospel was NOT an eye-witness account. It was written long after Judas had died. In fact, it was written long after anyone who had ever seen Jesus had died. In all likelihood, it had been written long after anyone who KNEW anyone who had seen Jesus had died.
The Gospel of Judas has the same credibility as a Jehovah Witness Bible… i.e. none.
Then there is the recent best seller by Dan Brown called “The DaVinci Code”. Mr. Brown has touted his novel as a “historical” fiction. In other words, he is trying to convince people that his fiction is built on truth.
In his book, Mr. Brown has declared that “Constantine commissioned and financed a new Bible, which omitted those gospels that spoke of Christ’s human traits and embellished those gospels that made Him godlike. The earlier gospels were outlawed, gathered up, and burned.” (p. 234 DaVinci Code)
Brown went on to say that “More than eighty gospels were considered for the New Testament, and yet only a relative few were chosen for inclusion-Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John among them.” (p. 231, DaVinci Code)
As I was preparing this sermon, I tried to think of a polite way to say what I’m about to say. I thought of saying that Dan Brown was being “untruthful” or “deceptive.” But I realized I that any attempt at politeness on my part might give you folks the wrong impression. So, I’m just going to say it straight out:
Dan Brown is a liar.
His statements are the product of a man whose is both a poor historian, and a devious liar. They are flat out lies.
Brown would have us believe that there were upwards of 80 gospels rejected by the early church in the days of Constantine. In reality, we only know of about 60 writings (not 80) that were not included in our Scriptures. And of those 60 documents, only a handful were what we would consider Gospel type stories about Jesus’ life.
Almost all of those documents were all rejected principally because they weren’t even close to being the writings of eye-witnesses… or of anyone who knew an eye-witness.
Dan Brown could easily have known this information. But his intention was not to present truth, or to build his novel upon reality. There can only be one reason why someone like him would make such deceptive comments: he intended to do damage to the church and to the faith people like you have in the story of Jesus. .
If you want to buy the book, or see the movie… I’m not about to stop you. But you may as well realize that you’ll only lining the pockets of those who have no respect for the Bible and no love for Jesus or His church.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ – His death, burial and resurrection - are build the foundation of a multitude of RELIABLE witnesses. The Gospel of Judas… and the DaVinci Code… are not.
ILLUS: Years ago, two men were riding on a railroad train discussing the Gospel story of Jesus.
The first man said, “I think an interesting romance could be written about (Jesus).”
The other replied, “You are just the man to write it. Set forth the correct view of His life and character. Tear down the prevailing sentiment as to His divineness and paint Him as He was - a man among men.”
The man who made that suggestion was Colonel Robert Ingersoll - a renowned agnostic and enemy of the church.
The other man was a General by the name of Lew Wallace.
Wallace began investigating the stories of the Gospels, and the more he investigated, the more convinced he became that the eyewitness accounts were extremely truthful, and that the Jesus presented by them was indeed the resurrected Son of God. The end result was one of the most powerful novels (and later one of them most powerful movies) ever written about Jesus: BEN HUR.
Down thru history… many others have come to the same conclusion. Doctors, scientists, lawyers, historians all have seen the Bible as an unshakable base for their faith.
IV. Now as reliable as those witnesses are we need to understand something – they’re all dead now!
Granted we have their written stories, but there are many people aren’t interested in the stories of dead men. In their minds, the witness of men and women from the past are interesting, but they don’t want to know the stories of the dead… they want to hear the stories of the living.
In other words, they don’t want a dead religion - they want a living faith.
They don’t want a history lesson… they want to know if Jesus STILL changes lives today.
They want to know if Jesus works for you.
The famous atheist Friedrick Nietzsche once said: “Show me that YOU are redeemed, and I will believe in your Redeemer.”
Now, Christians can fall into a trap when it comes to talking to others about their faith. I’ve done it myself. We’ll often focus on inviting people to our church because we have a loving congregation. Or you might talk about how much you like your preacher.
Or you might talk about how great their worship service is
And those things are ok… but we can often allow those surface realities to overshadow the really important information. We can forget to talk about Jesus and what Jesus HAS done for us in our lives.
And then there are those who don’t share their faith in Jesus because they want to avoid being seen as a “fanatics.”
ILLUS: Bill Bright told of meeting with a leading American statesman who was supposedly a professing Christian.
Bright had just asked the man to become involved in a massive effort to share their faith with people around the world.
The man’s response shocked him: “I don’t wear my religion on my sleeve. My religion is personal and I don’t want to talk about it.”
Bright was startled and could only ask: “You are a Christian aren’t you?”
The other man replied “Yes, but I’m not a religious fanatic.”
Bill Bright thought about that for a moment… and then asked
“Did it ever occur to you that it cost Jesus Christ His life so you could call yourself a Christian?
It cost the disciples their lives too, and millions of Christian throughout the centuries have suffered or died as martyrs in order to get the message of God’s love and forgiveness to you.
Now do you really believe that your faith in Christ is personal and private and that you shouldn’t talk about it?”
As quick as a flash the man replied, “No sir, I’m wrong. Tell me what I can do about it.”
CLOSE: Back in the 1800’s there was a British preacher named Alexander Maclaren.
He managed to get a one of the town’s leading skeptics to promise him that he would attend church for four Sundays on which Maclaren would be presenting the main tenets of Christianity.
The skeptic listened intently to Maclaren’s sermons. And after the fourth message he presented the skeptic was converted to Christ.
Maclaren was delighted and could not resist the impulse to ask which of the four sermons brought him to this decision.
The skeptic replied, "Your sermons, sir, were helpful, but they were not what finally persuaded me." He said that after church one Sunday as he was helping an elderly lady on a slippery walk, she looked up into his face and said, "I wonder if you know my Savior, Jesus Christ. He is everything in the world to me. I would like you to know Him too."
It wasn’t the sermon that converted the skeptic. It wasn’t the history lessons from Scripture that changed his heart. It was the simple loving witness of an elderly woman.
SERMONS IN THIS SERIES
CSI Jerusalem - The Motive = Acts 2:22-2:24
A Centurion’s Story = Matthew 27:50-27:54
CSI Jerusalem - Who Killed Jesus? = Matthew 26:1-26:5
Evidence That Demands A Verdict = Luke 24:1-24:35
Eyewitness Account = 1 Corinthians 15:1-15:8
