If someone murdered your mother would it be right that they should be punished? What about all the people who commit murder and are never caught in this life, would it be right for God to let them off without any punishment? Could God’s standard of justice be less than ours?

The witness of the conscience: What is sin?

If your conscience is working properly it will tell you if you break God‘s laws. Breaking God’s law is called SIN. Take a careful look at this summary of God’s laws:

1. You shall have no other gods.

2. You shall not make any image to serve.

3. You shall not take the name of the LORD in vain.

4. Remember the Sabbath day.

5. Honour your father and your mother, that you may have long life on earth.

6. You shall not murder.

7. You shall not commit adultery.

8. You shall not steal.

9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.

10. You shall not covet anything that is your neighbour’s.

Have you kept God’s laws perfectly every day of your life, or have you broken them? Have you ever told a lie? Have you ever stolen anything? Have you ever hated someone enough to want to kill them? Have you ever misused God’s name? If God judged you by that standard on the day of judgment, would you be innocent or guilty? God is so good that He must punish everyone who breaks the law. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6:23.

But how can we receive God’s gift?

Sin will kill you if its not removed.

We need to understand how God sees sin. Sin is like a cancer, it doesn’t go away with time, it grows until it kills you. My dad had a skin cancer. When the doctor saw it he was sent for tests and they quickly cut it out. If my dad had continued thinking it wasn’t a bad problem, the cancer would have grown until it killed him. It’s like that with sin, it may take a long time, but it will take you to eternal fire in Hell if its not forgiven.

There is only one cure.

God says sin can only be cleaned by a blood sacrifice, and it must be a sacrifice of an innocent and perfect one. In the Old Testament, God commanded that the people sacrifice a perfect animal that the blood would cleanse their sin. But He promised that He would provide a sacrifice. Jesus Christ came and voluntarily died as the perfect sacrifice to take away our sins. Because the Lord Jesus never sinned, He would not have died, but God placed our sins on the Lord Jesus Christ and He took the punishment for them. So, in a sense, it was your sins that killed the Lord Jesus. Are you sorry for causing the Lord Jesus that much suffering?

How to take the cure.

If you had a rich uncle and he wanted to give you a gift of a holiday. If you pay him money for the holiday, it would no longer be a gift, but a purchase. If the holiday is worth £2000, but you offer him £1, that would be an insult because as well as refusing to accept it as a gift, you are implying that its only worth £1. God wants to give you the gift of eternal life, but if you offer Him your’ good works or religion to try to pay for it, then you are refusing His gift and undervaluing it.

To receive God’s gift you need to trust Him. There is a lot of evidence that God is real and that Jesus is God, but you need to do more than believe it mentally. Imagine a chair. I can look at the chair. I can analyse what it is made of and how it is constructed. I can even watch other people sit on it and see it supports them, but if I don’t really trust that it’s strong enough to hold me, I won’t sit down.

Jesus demonstrated God’s love for you by dying for you to provide the only cure for your sin. Will you respond to His love by loving Him? He gave His whole life to pay the punishment for your sins and make it possible to give you eternal life. Will you respond by giving Him your whole life? And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. And he said unto me, It is done. I am, Alpha and, Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that overcomes shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. But the fearful, and unbelieving, and abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, will have their part in the lake burning with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. Revelation 21:5-8. God is warning you not to go there.

Turn from all your sins and Seek the LORD while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near; Let the wicked give up his way, and the sinner give up his thoughts: and let him turn to the LORD, and He will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. Isaiah 55:6-7.

Ask God to save you: But what does it say? The word is near you, even in your mouth, and in your heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; That if you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says, whosoever believes on him shall not be ashamed. Romans 10:8-11.

Proof that the Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead.

1. The Bible was written by 40 authors, yet gives one consistent picture of God.

2. The New Testament is written in first century Greek,

3. it claims that over 500 people saw the Lord Jesus alive at the same time after His resurrection and that most of them were still alive when it was written and circulated.

4. Though recording extraordinary events, it’s written in matter of fact language.

5. Women were listed as the first witnesses to the resurrection.

6. The Roman soldiers who guarded the tomb were subject to the death penalty.

7. The authorities who hated the Church were not able to produce the body.

8. History records that some of the apostles were martyred claiming Jesus rose from the dead. None of the eye witnesses recanted under torture. Men do not choose to die for something they don’t believe is true.

9. Many detailed prophecies in the Old Testament describe the life of Jesus.

10. Many of these can be read in the Dead Sea Scrolls which are dated around 100 years before the Lord Jesus was born.

11. Prophecy that Jerusalem will be a major political issue before Jesus returns. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it. Zechariah 12:3.

12. Many governments have tried to destroy the Bible; it has survived all attacks.

13. Millions of people through the last 2000 years claim to have met the Lord Jesus as the living God and many of them have suffered as Martyrs for their faith.

Proof of prophecy.

On the website https://www.imj.org.il/en/wings/shrine-book/dead-sea-scrolls you can see facimilies of the book of Isaiah from the Dead Sea Scrolls. This copy of Isaiah is dated at around 100 BC. Isaiah was written about 650 years before the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ and yet contains detailed propecies about His life. Only God could tell the future in this way.

God proved it to all men.

Now God strictly commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day in which He is going to judge the world in righteousness by a Man whom He appointed, having given proof to all by raising Him from the dead. Acts 17:30-31.

Many men have studied the historical evidence and concluded that no other explanation fits, eg.

Dr. Greenleaf, the Royal Professor of Law at Harvard University, wrote the famous legal volume entitled, A Treatise on the Law of Evidence, considered by many the greatest legal volume ever written. Dr. Simon Greenleaf believed the Resurrection of Jesus Christ was a hoax. And he determined, once and for all, to expose the “myth” of the Resurrection. After thoroughly examining the evidence for the resurrection — Dr. Greenleaf came to the exact opposite conclusion! He wrote a book entitled, An Examination of the Testimony of the Four Evangelists by the Rules of Evidence Administered in the Courts of Justice. In which he emphatically stated:

“it was impossible that the apostles could have persisted in affirming the truths they had narrated, had not Jesus Christ actually risen from the dead, . . .”

(Simon Greenleaf, An Examination of the Testimony of the Four Evangelists by the Rules of Evidence Administered in the Courts of Justice, p.29).

Greenleaf concluded that according to the jurisdiction of legal evidence the resurrection of Jesus Christ was the best supported event in all of history!

Gilbert West and Lord Lyttleton, two Oxford students, believed Christianity was a “tale gone mad” and they determined to refute the Christian faith. Lyttleton resolved to disprove the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, and West would refute the resurrection of Jesus Christ. They figured a careful, rational, examination of the evidence would easily disprove the Christian faith.

But after examining the evidence — they both separately came to the opposite conclusion! Lyttleton concluded that Saul of Tarsus did, in fact, convert to the Apostle Paul through Jesus Christ. And Gilbert West concluded that the Resurrection of Jesus Christ was among the best established facts in all of history! West went on to write a book entitled, “Observations on the History and Evidences of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ”.

Professor Thomas Arnold, former chair of history at Oxford, and author of the famous volumes, History of Rome, was skillfully educated in the study of historical facts. Professor Arnold, stated, “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, than the great sign which God has given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead.”

Lord Darling, former Chief Justice of England, stated, “. . .there exists such overwhelming evidence, positive and negative, factual and circumstantial, that no intelligent jury in the world could fail to bring in a verdict that the resurrection story is true.”

Since the resurrection of Jesus Christ is proved beyond reasonable doubt, it is the most important fact in history because your response to it will determine your eternal future.