Easter: Fact and Fiction

Video

April 20, 2014

You'll have to bear with me this morning, I'm still very sick. So, I'm not going to be my normal self preaching today, but just glad that I'm here at least, because the last few days I was wondering if I was even going to be able to be here and preach because I've been so sick the last few days so pray for our family to get over this horrible sickness.

In Matthew chapter 28, we read the familiar story about the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and of course, today is Easter Sunday, so that's an appropriate topic to preach on. What I want to preach this morning is a sermon called 'Easter Fact and Fiction.' Basically, I want to separate the fact from the fiction today when it comes to Easter because there are a lot of things about Easter that people say that simply aren't true. A lot of things that are just a hoax, or they're made up. Things about the resurrection of Christ that are not true. Just a few days ago, I had the Jehovah's Witnesses come to my house and they are always out. How many had the Jehovah's Witnesses come to your house in the last two weeks? See the hands all over the building? Because of the fact that they have a big Easter thing. They actually pervert the resurrection of Christ. I'm going to get to that later in the sermon, how they pervert and corrupt the resurrection of Christ. And they don't really believe in it. They just give it lip service.

This morning, I want to separate the fact from the fiction in three different areas as we look at the subject of Easter. First of all, number one; I want to give the fact and the fiction about the word Easter itself. If you would to go to Acts chapter 12. Acts chapter 12 is actually the only place in the Bible that uses the word 'Easter.' Acts chapter number 12 in your King James Bible, you'll see it in verse four. Before we read Acts chapter 12, let me just read for you a scripture from Proverbs 14:15 the Bible reads 'The simple believeth every word, but the prudent man looketh well to his going.' So what's God saying in that verse? Don't believe everything that you hear. It's a simple person who just hears things, and just 'Oh, okay,' you know? They just believe it without seeing whether it's really fact. Without seeing whether it really has basis in reality.

Now, my final authority is this Bible right here. The King James Bible, the English Bible, that is what I believe is the final authority for all areas of faith and in this church, this book is the final authority. I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ because of this book. I mean, when I was a child I heard the words of God, and I believed. The Bible says 'Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.' Let me tell you something, any other book in this world, any other religious text, it does not have the power of the Bible, it can't even come close. No book can even hold a candle to this book right here. The King James Bible. This is my final authority. This is the basis for what I believe.

Now, anything that is outside of this book, I have to suspect it. I have to figure out, 'okay, is this true or not?' But if it's from the Bible, I know it's true, because the Bible says 'Thy word is truth.' But anything outside the Bible, we have to wonder; 'okay, am I being told the truth, or am I being lied to?' And there's so much deception out there, and so it would be a very simple person indeed who just believes everything that they hear. That's why the Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 5:21, 'Prove all things, hold fast that which is good.' Often what you'll hear this time of year, usually by people who don't go to church. You see that the church is packed today, because why? Because people go to church on Easter. Even people who don't go to church all the time, they say 'Hey, let's at least go on Easter.' I think that's great. That's a good thing. People come to church, and they want to make sure that they pay reverence to the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday.

But people will try to attack Easter, and they'll say 'Easter is a wicked pagan holiday.' And they'll say 'even that word Easter is a wicked Pagan word, it comes from a false called Ishtar.' Who's heard that kind of stuff before. The whole building has their hand up, because this type of thing is always brought up this time of year. But yet, we find the word Easter in the Bible, and it's about something that's Godly. Look at the Bible. Let's read it together. In Acts chapter 12 verse 1; 'Now about that time Herod, the king, stretched forth his hands to [beg 00:04:22] certain of the church, and he killed James the brother of John, with the sword. And because he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. Then were the days of unleavened bread.'

Let me give you some context here. Herod is the king over Judea at that time, and he kills James, one of the disciples. And the Jews are happy, and he wants to please the Jews, right? He's a politician. He wants his followers to be pleased with him. He's going to do whatever makes him popular. He doesn't care what's right. He just wants to do that which is popular. And who is he trying to be popular with, according to this scripture? The Jews. Because the Jews are the ones who hated Jesus, they killed him, they crucified him. So, when he starts killing the disciples, that makes him popular with the Jews. He's doing something that they want. And it says 'Because he saw that it pleased the Jews' in verse 3, 'he proceeded further to take Peter also. Then were the days of unleavened bread.'

Now, that little parenthetical there, 'then were the days of unleavened bread' That's not there by accident. It's there for a reason. He wants us to understand why there's a delay in killing Peter. It says in verse 4, 'and when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people. Peter, therefore, was kept in prison, but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him.' So, this is a great story where Peter's arrested, and he's about to be killed with the sword. But wait a minute, they don't kill him because it's during the days of unleavened bread. And they don't want to kill him during those feast days.

If you remember when Jesus- let the Bible interpret itself. When you look at the story of when Jesus was crucified, it was right before the Passover. He was crucified on the day of preparation for the Passover, and they said 'we need to get his body off the cross before the Passover. They don't want to be killing people, having people hanging on a cross, during these days that set apart as holy to celebrate the Passover and the feast of unleavened bread. So they don't want any execution to take place during their holiday. Their week-long days of unleavened bread. Which, by the way, even today, the Jews are celebrating today, the feast of unleavened bread. It goes through this Tuesday. April 22nd. Today is April 20th.

He doesn't want to- his whole point in killing Peter is to make the Jews happy. Well, yeah, he's not going to kill him during their holiday. That's not going to make them happy. So he's going to wait until after Easter to do it. You say, 'Well, what's Easter?' Well, if we just read the context, and let scripture interpret scripture, Easter is equivalent to the days of unleavened bread. He calls it in verse 3, 'the days of unleavened bread.' He calls it in verse 4 'Easter.' Now, people out there will try to say 'Oh, this Easter, you know... Yes, the word Easter is in the Bible, but it's a wicked Pagan holiday. That was just some pagan holiday that Herod was celebrating.' Well, that's just simply not true. In fact, I can document for you that that's not true. I can bring facts to you that that's not true.

Here's the thing, when you just read things on the internet, that doesn't make them true. There are all kinds of internet hoaxes out there, and people say all kinds of things. It's important to fact check things before you just repeat them and just believe them and actually get to the facts. Now, when you're investigating something, and let me just explain to you something that's just good for you to know in life. Whether it's in religion or anything else. Whenever you're trying to find the truth about something, you go to the source. You don't get everything secondhand, third-hand. The number one source, if you wanted to learn something about Faith [War 00:08:11] Baptist Church would be to talk to me, talk to one of our members, attend a service, visit our website. If you read a newspaper article about our church, that's what's called a secondary source. Because your getting something secondhand, right? Showing up here is getting something firsthand.

If I look to the Bible, I'm getting things firsthand. This is a primary source right here of truth. Now, if I read a book about the Bible, that's a secondary source. And then, someone preaches to me something that they read in a book about the Bible, now we're third-hand getting our information. So it's always important to go to the source and understand. Look, I can actually show you a historical document that will prove that Easter is equivalent to Passover or the days of unleavened bread. This is William Tyndale's New Testament. First printed in 1534. So this is long before the King James in the English language. 1534 New Testament. In this book in my hand, the word 'Easter' is used 23 times in this book.

Is he talking about a pagan festival? Is he talking about a pagan holiday 23 times? Let me just give you some examples. I'm not going to read all 23, but in Luke 2:41 it says, 'and his father and mother went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of Easter.' Luke 22:1 says 'The feast of sweetbread drew nigh, which is called Easter.' John 6:4 'and Easter, a feast of the Jews was nigh.' Acts 12:4, same as the King James, Acts 20 verse 6, 'and we sailed away from Philippos after the Easter holidays. And came unto them to Troas in five days where we abode seven days. Hebrews 11:28, 'through faith he ordained the Easter Lamb, and the effusion of blood lest he that destroy the firstborn should touch them.'

From this book right here, we can clearly see that the English word 'Easter' is talking about the Passover. 23 times in this book. Furthermore, that giant book back there, some able bodied young man, go grab that giant book back there from the table. Somebody who's strong enough to lift the thing. That right there, okay...

And you say, 'Why do you even take the time to even talk about this?' Because I'm just trying to show you how much deception out there there is, and the way that you find the truth about things by going to the source, and actually looking it up. Look, this is the original King James 1611 edition. This thing is... You could get a workout with this thing. I mean this thing is huge. This is, of course a replica, but I've seen a real one. The real one's worth like $400,000. I've held it in my hand, it's identical to this book right here. And right here in the front of this book it says, it has a little chart right here of how to find Easter forever. Now, are they telling you how to find a pagan holiday? Obviously, they're telling you how to find the holiday where we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ in this book. So don't tell me that the King James translators wanted us to see about this pagan holiday Herod was celebrating when the translators are calling the resurrection of Christ holiday right here Easter. Right here in the front of this book.

See, these are facts. This is not a website. This is fact. This is fact, and we need to just be careful that we don't... I mean, the internet has a lot of great information, don't get me wrong, but we just need to be careful to separate the fact from fiction. First of all, always making this book our final authority. And if this book is our final authority, then we see that Easter is equivalent to the feast of unleavened bread as we read the context. And that is further supported by this information right here. So that just kind of helps separate that out.

Secondly, go to Genesis chapter one. I just want to separate the fact from the fiction there on the word Easter. Not a bad word, because the Bible says every word of God is pure. And if God chose to use the word Easter in our English Bible to talk about the Passover, the feast of unleavened bread, that must not be a bad word. Therefore, I have no problem saying that today we're celebrating Easter Sunday. It's a very Biblical term. You say, 'Well, why does it just say Easter in that one place?' Everywhere else it says Passover, why does it just say Easter in that one place?

Well, here's why. Because this guy William Tyndale invented the word 'Passover' himself. He also invented the word 'scapegoat.' He also invented a few other words that escape me at the moment. New words take a while to catch on. That's why he mainly used Easter in this book slowly over time. By the time you get to 1539, they're using the word Passover about half the time, and by the time you get to the Bishop's Bible, Easter's only used twice. By the time of King James, it's just used that one time. Why is just used that one time? Well, a couple reasons. Number one, because it's talking about the whole week. So to differentiate that from the single day, the word Easter is to denote the entire week and the feast of unleavened bread that's a seven day thing.

And then, number two, it's used because in fact this is after the resurrection of Christ, so taking the focus off of the Old Testament aspect of Passover, and looking at the New Testament aspect of Passover because this is the only mention after the resurrection of Christ. You know, Corinthians and so on are pointing backward. So that's why. But what about the dates of Easter? Go to Genesis chapter 1 look at verse 14. 'And God said 'let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night. And let there be for signs and for seasons and for days and years. And let there be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth and it was so. And God made two great lights. The greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night, he made the stars also.'

Now this clearly tells us that God gave us the sun, moon, and stars, so that we could have years and months and days and weeks, and so that we could keep track of time. And yet people will say that there is something pagan or wicked about the fact that the date for Easter has to do with the sun and the moon. Well, that's how God told us to reckon time. Now today, in the United States of America, we only use the sun to reckon time. Our calendar that we use is based upon the sun. The lunar month, doesn't really mean anything to us today. We don't follow that program. But, yet, in the Bible, they did follow that program of a lunar month.

Have you ever wondered why Easter jumps around all the time? You ever just, 'When is Easter?' Because sometimes it's at the end of March, and then other times it's April 20th? I mean this is pretty late, right, for Easter. Usually, it's at the end of March, all different times, and it's so confusing. That's why there's the big chart explaining how to find it. 'When in the world's Easter?' But let me actually give you the exact formula for when we celebrate Easter, and I'm going to explain to you why.

This is the formula for Easter. It is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. Okay, that's the formula. The first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. Now people will look at that and say 'Full moon, aahhhh. Werewolves, Vampires, Paganism, Wickedness!' No, wrong. God told us to use the sun and the moon to calculate time. There's nothing wrong with that. Now, let me explain to you, real simply, why this formula exists, and why the formula makes perfect sense, okay. Here's why: because the Passover is held on the 14th day of the first month on the Hebrew Calendar. Now, remember, the Hebrew's use a calendar that has to do with the sun and the moon, therefore, the first day of their month is the new moon. So, whenever there's a new moon, they're like 'okay, new month.' New moon, new month.

Therefore, if the Passover is on the 14th day, isn't that about halfway through the month? 15th day starts the feast of unleavened bread, halfway through the month. Okay, what happens when you start the month, this is like a science class. If you start the month on the first of the new moon, what do you have halfway through the month? A full moon, right? So, therefore, the Passover would always be right around the time of the full moon, wouldn't it? Because they're always starting a month on a new moon, the full moon's on the 15th, the Passover is on the evening it goes from the 14th to the 15th and then another week. Therefore, the full moon, coincides with Passover. Always, okay.

Then, did Jesus Christ die on the cross on Passover? Yes, but did he rise from the dead on Passover? How many days later did he rise from the dead after he died on the cross? Three days later. So he rose from the dead, what? After the full moon, or after the day of Passover, right? Now, here's the thing, whenever you're celebrating a holiday, you have to decide, 'are we going to do it on the exact date? Or are we going to do it on the day of the week?' Think about that? Mother's day, for example, do we celebrate that on a certain date or a day of the week? A day of the week. Memorial day is always, what? Monday. Labor day is always going to be on a Monday. Whereas, holidays like 4th of July, Christmas, they're on a certain date. It could be a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, anything. Whereas Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday. So, here's the thing, instead of Easter being on a different day of the week every year, it's always on a Sunday during the Passover week, okay. Because of the fact that three days after Passover...

If we were to have, if we were to celebrate on the exact day this year, of when Jesus rose from the dead, it would have been the 18th, okay. For example. 17th, 18th, something like that. Today's the 20th, why? Because we're doing it on a Sunday. And in fact, I just wrote down for the past five years on 2011, Easter was on April 24th, Passover was from April 18th to April 26th. Okay, 2012, Easter was on April 8th, Passover was the 6th to the 14th. 2013, Easter was on March 31rst. Passover was from March 25th to April 2nd. And on and on and on and on. Yet, go on the internet and there's this 'The date of Easter has nothing to do with the Passover. Nothing. It's at a completely different time!' Somebody e-mailed me this morning and said 'today is Easter, and this is nowhere near Passover' even though they're celebrating Passover right now. But I'm telling you, there's a lot of fiction out there, there's a lot of just lies and fabrication out there. People just make things up. We need to prove all things. We need test things. The reason we're celebrating Easter today is because this is the Passover week. The reason we're celebrating Easter today is to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and that's it.

Look what the Bible says in John chapter 19, verse 31. It says 'The Jews, therefore, because it was the preparation, that the body should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath day, for that Sabbath day was an high day, besought pilot that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away.' Notice, this was not an ordinary Sabbath. It says 'this Sabbath was an high day.' I'm not going to turn there for sake of time, but back in Leviticus 16 and Leviticus 23, it calls the day of atonement a Sabbath, even though it would fall on a different day of the week every year, because it's just the 10th day of the 7th month. And it calls holidays 'A Sabbath.' So there's the Saturday Sabbath, but then there's also the Sabbath of a holiday. When it says here that Jesus Christ is hung on the cross the day of the preparation before the Sabbath day, it's not talking about Saturday, it's talking about the Passover. It's the day before the Passover. It says in chapter 18, flip back one page. John chapter 18 verse 28, 'then led they Jesus from Caiaphas under the hall of judgement and it was early, and they themselves went not into the judgement hall, lest they should be defiled, but that they might heed the Passover.'

So, they're saying 'Look, we don't want to be defiled, we want to eat the Passover.' The next day is the Passover, they're trying to keep themselves clean to do that. Look at chapter 19 verse 14 it says, 'And it was the preparation of the Passover, and about the sixth hour and he sayeth unto the Jews, behold your king, but they cried out 'away with him, away with him. Crucify him!' Pilot sayeth unto them, 'Shall I crucify your king?' The chief priest answered, 'we have no king but Caesar.'' Now go to 1 Corinthians chapter number 5. 1 Corinthians chapter 5. I'm going to show you something amazing in the Bible, here. 1 Corinthians chapter 5.

But today there are people out there that tell you that if you celebrate Easter, you're worshiping Satan. And they tell you 'Easter' comes from 'Ishtar' No evidence for that, total fraud. Go to the Library, and go check out every single book in the library on ancient history, ancient mythology, none of them. You will find evidence for none of what you see on the internet. You look up Ishtar, the false goddess from thousands of years ago, and it'll tell you that Ishtar's symbols were eight-pointed stars, lions and owls. Those are the things in the carvings. Then you look it up on the internet, Ishtar's associated with rabbits, eggs. It's so convenient. She just happens to be associated with rabbits and eggs, and she just happens to have an association with the full moon, and the equinox. It's a fraud. It's an internet hoax. Look it up.

Now, look. Do people celebrate other things on today, Easter Sunday? Of course they do. Why? Because not everybody believes on Jesus Christ. And a lot of people don't even want to retain God in their knowledge, and a lot of people don't want to talk about the resurrection of Jesus Christ today, so what they do, is they want to turn the holiday into something else. So, they'd rather talk about the Easter Bunny, and eggs, and chocolate, but look, what we ought to be talking about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That's what we ought to be celebrating, that's what we ought to be celebrating, but there are people out there that don't want to talk about that, so that's why on Christmas, instead of talking about the birth of Christ, what do they want to talk about? They want to find a substitution there of something that fits what they believe, so they want to talk about Santa Clause, and reindeer, and snowmen.

But, look, just because people are talking about reindeer, Santa Clause and snowmen, just because people today are talking about rabbits laying eggs, and we all know that rabbits do not lay eggs, that doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with us celebrating the Biblical holiday of Easter, just celebrating the resurrection of Christ, celebrating the Passover lamb, who was Jesus. You say, 'Why celebrate Easter? Where does the Bible tell us to celebrate Easter?' Well, because we should celebrate the resurrection of Christ, and we should commemorate his death, burial and resurrection.

In fact, look at 1 Corinthians 5:7, and see what the Bible says. 1 Corinthians 5:7 'purge out, therefore, the old leaven, that you may be a new may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity to...' Look, the Bible's telling us to keep the feast. And what are we supposed to be celebrating? Christ our Passover. And I don't just want to celebrate his death, I want to celebrate his burial and resurrection. And let me tell you something, the Jews today that are celebrating their Passover week, they have no hope. They do not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Passover in the Bible, they would kill a lamb, and they would shed the blood of that lamb, and God said that blood of that lamb is for an atonement for your souls. It's to forgive your sins.

But, wait a minute, it's not possible that the blood of animals can take away sins. That was a picture of Jesus, and when Jesus arrived, John the Baptist looked at Jesus and said, 'Behold, the lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.' And today, the Jews, they didn't even sacrifice a lamb on, let's see what date it was. I have my dates on the other page. Back on April 14th when their Passover week started, because today we're toward the end of their Passover week. Back on April 14th, they didn't kill a lamb. They didn't shed the blood. Why? Because Judaism is a fraud, that's why. Because in the Old Testament, they killed a lamb. They shed that blood. And do you know why we don't shed that blood today? Because Jesus is the lamb who died once for all, he doesn't need to be offered every year, and by the way, you don't have to get saved every year. You get saved one time, Jesus died once, he was buried once, he rose again once, we believe on him once, and we're born again once, and we're saved for all eternity. One offering, the Bible says. He has perfected forever them that are sanctified by one offering one time.

The Jews every year, I want to say they're offering a lamb, they're not even offering it. And I asked the Jews, 'Why don't you sacrifice animals if you believe in the Old Testament?' 'oh, oh, oh, we just don't have the temple.' You know what, they were sacrificing animals long before that temple was ever built. God said, 'you don't have the temple, you pile up an alter of whole stones, and you sacrifice on an alter of whole stones. But they're like 'we don't have our temple, we're not going to sacrifice.' God never even told them to build that temple. That temple never even came into God's mind. God told them to build them what? A tabernacle. God told them to build a tent. They were supposed to build a tabernacle, and then David said 'I'm going to build you a temple.' And God's like, 'I never told you to do that.' But yet, their like, 'Well, if we don't have that building...' Look, do you think we'd stop having church if we didn't have a building?

Look, it's not about a building. It's not about the temple. It's not about the tabernacle. It's the God of the temple. It's the God of the tabernacle. And you know what? They were supposed to just pile up stones, and that was the alter. Whoever did that in Sunday School, where you color a little picture of an alter that just a bunch of boulders. Did anybody ever do that coloring book? Two people? When I was a kid, you go to Sunday School, it's like a little- You know they give you a little color seat in Sunday School, and it was just like a bunch of boulders piled up, and Abraham's offering Issac, doing a burnt sacrifice. Look, they don't offer the lamb because they don't believe in the Bible. We don't offer a lamb because the lamb's already been offered. His name's Jesus Christ. And he's been sacrificed for us. He's our savior. He died, he was buried, and he rose again. We keep the feast and we celebrate the Lord's death. We celebrate his burial and resurrection. Nothing pagan about that, my friend. Nothing about a false god. And you know what? I'm not going to go celebrate with the unbelieving Jews. I'd rather celebrate with God's people in the house of the Lord in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Not with unbelievers, okay.

Now, in 1 Corinthians 5 here, we see that Jesus Christ is our Passover. Here's what's so interesting about that. And if you would, flip over to Matthew chapter 12, and I want to move onto my next point quickly here, but here's what's so interesting about it, and I'm not trying to bend your mind with a lot of math and dates and everything, but it's pretty interesting when you think about the fact that the Passover lamb back in Exodus, on the tenth day of the month, they would present the lamb, and make sure that it had no spot or blemish. So they would get out a lamb on the 10th day of the month, and they'd look at it, and examine it, and they would present that lamb. Then, on the 14th day, at even, or 6pm basically when the evening comes, they would kill that lamb, and the Bible says that the congregation of Israel, the whole congregation would kill those lambs. Each household had their own lamb, and the whole congregation would kill the lambs at that time on the Passover, which is the 14th, okay.

Then on the 15th, they'd have the day of unleavened bread. Now here's what's so fascinating, when Jesus Christ was on this earth, doing his earthly ministry, you remember the Sunday before Easter, what's that holiday called today in America? Palm Sunday. And that Palm Sunday is to commemorate Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem. This is where Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, and they were all laying down the palm branches. They took off their coats and laid them down in the way. And they said 'Blessed is he who cometh in the name of the Lord.' And that was his triumphal entry, let me tell you something. That was the lamb being presented to the congregation. He came to them, and they said 'Behold thy King cometh unto thee.' But they did not accept him. He came unto his own, but his own received him not. Because later they would tell Pilot, 'We have no king but Caesar.' But he came on that donkey, he came meek and humble, not on a horse like a warrior, which he will. The second time he's coming on a horse. But he'd come on a donkey humble and ready to save them. Ready to be their savior. And he shows up, he is presented to the congregation on the 10th.

Now think about this. If Sunday was the 10th, then what was Monday? It was the 11th. And we realize they didn't call it Sunday and Monday back then, they weren't speaking English, but do you mind if I speak English? Or should we switch to another language? But anyway, Monday is the 11th, right? And then Tuesday would be what? The 12th, okay. Wednesday would be what? 13th. And then Thursday would be what? And what day is the Passover? The 14th. Okay, so when was Jesus killed, then? He wasn't killed on Friday. That doesn't work, because he was killed on the Passover, which the 14th. Now, the way that the Bible reckons time, remember in Genesis 1, 'And the evening and the morning were the first day.' So the day kind of starts the night before. Kind of like we start the day when? Midnight. They just start it a few hours early at evening, 6pm is when they would start. The day ends, and then they have the night, and then the day, okay.

So if you think about it, if Jesus was crucified, on Wednesday, then basically, he would have died that evening. And if he died on that Wednesday evening, he would be killed on the Passover at even on the 14th day, right there. Wednesday night, if he gave up the ghost. He says some things at 3 o'clock pm, the ninth hour. But I believe that he gave up the ghost around 6pm, around evening, when they would kill the Passover. He gave up the ghost around that time, if you study the scripture. And then he was dead for three days and three nights. Well, if you think about that, if we go from Wednesday night, that gives us three days. Thursday, Friday and Saturday. But it's even more interesting than that. So, the three days that Jesus was dead was Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Those are the three days he was dead, but here's what's interesting; Thursday was the Passover, right? The Jews were not allowed to do any work on the Passover.

The 15th day, which would be Friday, was the feast of unleavened bread. No work. Saturday was what? The Sabbath. Are they supposed to work on the Sabbath? No work. And then Jesus rose again and even before, he actually rose in the night, because the Bible even says that when they got there to that tomb, even before it was light they got to the tomb, he's already gone. He'd already risen early on the first day of the week, before it was even day, before they'd even got there, he'd already risen on the first day of the week.

Now look, what is so interesting about that? Because salvation is not of works. And Jesus was showing us 'while I'm paying for salvation, while the death, burial and resurrection is happening, it's three days of rest.' He said, 'I don't want anybody working but me.' Because Jesus was doing all the work for us to be saved. He did all the work. That's what the Sabbath teaches us. He wants us to rest in His promise. Rest on His sacrifice, and not try to work our way. You can't work your way to heaven. Jesus paid it all during those three days of rest. Passover, unleavened bread, Sabbath. And then what's even more interesting is that the Bible talks about it. That time of year after the Sabbath, the day after the Sabbath on the first day of the week, then they would waive the sheaf of the first fruits at that time. And Jesus is the first fruits of the resurrection, the Bible tells us. Then, after they wave that sheaf of the first fruits, they would number 50 days, and have Pentecost. And of course we know the story of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2.

Everything in the Bible just fits together when you look at it and study it. But to say Jesus is crucified on a Friday is a fiction. It's not true. It's just false. You say, 'Where does that come from?' People just misunderstood the Bible when it said that he died the day before the Sabbath. They thought that meant Saturday, when in reality the Bible's real clear that that Sabbath was a holiday, or a high day, it was a feast day, it was the Passover. It was three back to back Sabbaths. Passover, unleavened bread, Saturday. Amazing. And think about it, if Jesus had died other years, it wouldn't have lined up like that. It's like he died on a particular year where it's just lined up perfectly, where all three days that he was dead had a special meaning. Each of the three. Very amazing how God does everything so perfectly.

I'm going to skip some stuff to take time. It's going to prove to you more clearly that he was dead for three days and three nights. The Bible says as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, are you there in Matthew 12? Look at verse 40, 'For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. You say, 'Well, he rose again the third day.' But in the Bible the third day means after three days. I have evidence for that from Esther, 1 Kings, James. Don't have time for it. But let's look at another aspect of the resurrection. The fact vs. the fiction. Go to Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter number 2, and then we're going to go to the main resurrection chapter which is 1 Corinthians chapter 15.

Again, there's a false religion out there called the Jehovah's Witnesses, and they've been out in force, knocking doors. They try to put themselves forth as Biblical Christianity, and their simply not. They don't believe that Jesus died on the cross. They don't believe he rose again. They don't believe in Heaven, they don't believe in Hell. But then they say they're Christians, and that's not Christianity. Christianity teaches that Jesus died on the cross, that he rose again, that there is a Heaven for those that are saved, and there is a Hell for the unsaved, and they don't believe those things. In fact, the Jehovah's Witnesses that knocked on my door a few days ago, I said unto them, 'You don't believe that Jesus died on the cross.' 'Oh yes we do.' I said, 'You don't believe that Jesus died on the cross.' 'Well we believe Jesus died for us.' I said, 'On a cross?' 'No.'

Now, you say, 'Why is that important?' Oh, I don't know, just because everything in the Bible's important. Just because the Bible tells us over and over again that he died on the cross. And I said, 'How did he die?' 'On a stick.' And I said, 'Well, how many nails-' if he was on a stick the way the Jehovah's Witnesses show us, 'How many nails would he have in his hand?' They said, 'One.' And I said, 'Well, here's where the Bible says 'the print of the nails in his hands.'' So I said 'It says nails, plural, in his hands, that's two nails. That's the cross.' Not to mention the fact that it just says over and over again that it was on the cross, but they have a Bible that takes all that out. They have their own 'New World Translation' it's called, where they take all that out. Take out the cross, take out stuff about hell, they just make all kinds of changes.

But I said, 'Right there, two nails.' And she's like, 'Well, I guess they could have put two nails. I guess, just double it up, you know?' They didn't have any answers for me, my friend. The main problem with the Jehovah's false Witnesses, beside the fact that they don't believe Jesus is God, they don't believe in the three in one, they don't believe in Heaven and Hell. The main problem is they don't believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now, they claim to be celebrating today the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but they don't believe that he bodily rose again. Now, let me show you what the Bible says in Acts chapter 2 verse 31.

It says in Acts 2 verse 31, 'he, seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in Hell, neither his flesh did seek corruption.' Now, in that verse, we see two aspects of the resurrection of Christ. One is the fact that his soul wasn't left in Hell. His soul resurrected from Hell. Then we also see the aspect that his flesh did not seek corruption. So, there's a spiritual aspect, and a bodily aspect. Everybody see that? The Soul and the Body. Now, go to John chapter 2. John chapter number 2, we're also going to look at Luke 24. John chapter number 2, and Luke 24.

In John chapter 2, it says in verse 19, 'Jesus answered and said unto them 'destroy this temple, and in three days, I will raise it up.' Look at verse 21, 'but he spake of the temple of his body.' What is Jesus going to raise up after three days, according to this verse? His body. He said, look, if you destroy this temple, in three days, I will raise it up. He spoke of the temple of his body. He said, I'm going to raise this body up. Go to Luke 24, you should just turn one page to the left in your Bible, and you're at the end of the book of Luke.

The Jehovah's Witnesses, here's what they'll tell you. 'Well, his body didn't raise,' this is what they say, 'His spirit just left his body.' That's called dying. How many times have you read the Bible, and it said someone 'gave up the ghost'? What does that mean? They died. It says, Abraham gave up the ghost, Issac gave up the ghost, it means they died. The ghost is the spirit, they gave up the spirit. Spirit left the body. The Bible says 'The body without the spirit is dead.' And they say 'well, the resurrection was when Jesus' spirit left his body. Wrong, that's not what the resurrection is. Let me prove to you right now, that the resurrection of Jesus Christ was a bodily resurrection. You say, 'Why does this matter?' Because your salvation hinges on the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. My dying grandfather, his last words were 'Remember that the gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.' Those are his dying words. And he couldn't have been more right, he couldn't have been more biblical when he told, I wasn't there, but he told them to my brother. His dying words.

The Bible says in Luke 24 verse 36, this is after the resurrection, 'As they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them and sayeth unto them, 'Peace be unto you.' But they were terrified, afrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. Sounds like the Jehovah's Witnesses. They thought they saw a what? What do the Jehovah's Witnesses think that the resurrection was? A spirit. But what did they really see? Let's keep reading, 'They thought they saw a spirit.' Verse 38, 'And he said unto them, 'why are you troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet that it is I, myself. Handle me, and see for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as you see me have.'' Is this a bodily resurrection? He said, look, I'm flesh and bone. Come put your hands on me. Put your fingers in the holes in my hand. Put your hand in my side, and believe that I have risen from the dead bodily.

He said, I am not a spirit, I am flesh and bones. Feel it. Come touch it, don't take my word for it. 'And when they had thus spoken, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they yet believed not for joy and wonder, and he said unto them 'Have ye here any need-' Look, just in case there's any doubt about the bodily resurrection, let's just clear it up right now. 'They gave him a piece of broiled fish and of an honeycomb, and he took it and did eat before them.' I mean, how is that a spirit that can eat food? He's just showing them, 'I'm physically here, guys. Okay, come handle me. Okay, still not convinced? Give me some food. Okay, I'm eating food everybody.' What else do you have to prove?

I showed this to the Jehovah's Witnesses, and usually they're kind of confounded by it, not surprisingly. Sometimes you'll show it to them, and if it's one of their expert guys, here's what he said, 'Well, actually, Jesus was just a spirit when he rose, by Jehovah loaned him a body. To go show the disciples. Here's what's funny. That the loaner that he picked up actually had holes in the hands and the sides. I mean, that sounds like God is trying to pull of some kind of a fraud. Like, 'Hey, let's make them think that it's the same body. Here, let's put some holes in it, let's punch a hole here, okay, let's put some stripes on the back. Here you go, here's the loaner. Bring it back full of fuel in three days.'

That is so blasphemous, and so ridiculous. How can anyone be deceived when there's a stadium full of people today who are being lied to today by the Jehovah's Witnesses. Millions of people. Even in the Spanish-speaking world, you see all over Phoenix the Testigos de Jehová. Salom [devreno 00:43:05] Testigos de Jehová. All over the place. Look, it's a fraud, it's a false religion folks, and they're denying the most important part of our salvation which is the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. Go to 1 Corinthians 15, I'm going to show you that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is essential to salvation. You have to believe in it to be saved. If you don't believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, you're not saved. That's why none of the Jehovah's Witnesses are saved. We need to get them saved. Let's get them the gospel. They're not saved because they don't believe in the bodily resurrection.

Let me show you 1 Corinthians 15:1 says this, 'Moreover rather, and I declared unto you the gospel which I preached unto you which also you've received and wherein ye stand, by which also ye are saved.' So the Bible says that we're saved by the gospel and he says you're saved by it, 'and if you keep in remembrance what I've preached unto you, unless you have believed in vain. For I have delivered unto you first of all that which I also received how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.

Look, the Bible says if you don't believe that, you believed in vain. That's what the Bible says. Throughout this whole passage, he tells us, this is a long chapter, it's known as the resurrection chapter, 1 Corinthians 15, like Hebrews 11 is the faith chapter, 1 Corinthians 13 is the charity chapter. This is the resurrection chapter. And throughout this chapter, he says, 'without the resurrection, we have no hope. We have no salvation.' You can say, 'Well, the Jehovah's Witnesses, they believe stuff. The Bible doesn't say 'Believe stuff, and thou shalt be saved.' It said 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,' and guess what you have to believe. The gospel of Jesus Christ, okay? So then, anybody who believes anything other than the gospel of Jesus Christ has believed in vain. 'Oh, well I believe in Jesus.' Except their Jesus is Michael the Archangel. Their Jesus didn't rise from the dead. Their Jesus is not a Biblical Jesus. Yes, they believe something. Yes, they have faith in a Jesus, but they have believed in vain if they don't believe in the death, burial and resurrection.

Now you say, what's the burial about? Well, let me ask you this, What did they bury? A spirit, or a body? So, if it's the death, burial and resurrection, what died? The body. What was buried? The body. What rose again? The Body! It's the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. That's why it's so critical. Look, is there a spiritual side to it? Of course. Yes his soul was not left in hell, neither did his flesh seek corruption. Both aspects are there. Now, are you in 1 Corinthians 15? Jump down on the page, I just want to show you one last thing, and then we'll wrap it up with Romans 6. Go down to 1 Corinthians 15:50, because here's what Jehovah's Witnesses will say. After you show them this mountain of evidence, and say 'Look, he's eating, he's drinking, they're handling him, he's saying I'm not a spirit, I'm flesh and bone.' Here's what they'll say, 'Well, no no no, it couldn't be a bodily resurrection because he said,' This is what the only thing I've ever had them show me, 1 Corinthians 15:50 says, 'Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, neither doth corruption inheriting corruption.' And see right there? Flesh and blood can't inherit it.

Well, keep reading, 'Behold I show you a mystery, we shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed.' See, our bodies will be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trump. 'For the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed for this corruptible must be made incorruptible, and this mortal must put on immortality.' Says in Phillipians 3:21, 'Who shall change our vile body that it might be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things into himself.'

Let me ask you something, when Jesus rose again from the dead, was his body changed? But did the body still rise? Of course. He still rose, his body still rose. There was a change in that body. It went from being a mortal body that could be killed to being an immortal body that cannot be killed. It went from being a corruptible body that would age and go through pain and sickness, and went to being an incorruptible body that was not bound by those same weaknesses and limitations. Now, look at verse 50 again, does that say flesh and bones? Does that say flesh and bones shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Is that what it says? What did Jesus say he had? Did he say, I have flesh and blood? He said I have flesh and bones.

Now, here's the thing. Our physical bodies today are powered by a life force that is our bloodstream. The Bible says the life of all flesh is in the blood thereof. And the thing that's keeping us alive right now is our blood. It's what delivers the life-giving oxygen and nutrients. Our blood is the life of our flesh. It's even the life of other animal's flesh, the blood. But in the resurrection, the blood is not the life force. In the resurrection, the spiritual body after the resurrection is powered by the spirit. Old body is powered by the blood. New body is powered by the spirit. That's why flesh and blood doesn't inherit. Flesh and bone does. So that, I just wanted to explain that quickly.

Last place to turn, Romans 6. Romans chapter 6. So that we see that the resurrection is crucial for a couple of things. Number one, it's crucial to salvation. But number two, it symbolizes our new life in Christ. Now, we're separating the fact from the fiction this morning. We said, number one, the word Easter. Should I just believe everything I've read on the internet, well, turns out, it's a hoax. A lot of that stuff turned out to be a hoax. You try to fact check it. I see something, I don't just automatically 'That's not fair, no, don't ruin my holiday.' No, you fact check it. And you look it up like, 'okay. Is this true?' And when you start fact checking, you notice that everybody is quoting everybody else in a circle, and it's not going back to any source.

The only source is a book called Two Babylon's by Alexander Hislov, which was written by someone with a very vivid imagination. Who just filled it with fabrications that he documented not at all. He doesn't give any evidence for these things that he claims about Easter. It's made up. It's been debunked, it's been proven to be a fraud. Does it have good things in the book? Well, you can find good things in the garbage can too, let's go jump in it after the service, see what we can find. Find some treasures. I'm saying, it's all just quoting each other, separate the fact from the fiction, Easter's a Biblical word, it's just referring to the Biblical week. We're celebrating right now during what week? Passover week.

Then the date. Number two, separate fact from fiction on the date. 'Oh, these dates have nothing to do with Passover, oh the date!' And that it's just pure coincidence that it just happens to be during Passover week. This year, and last year, and the year before, and the year before, and the year before. But don't let that confuse you, okay? We separate the fact from the fiction. Is it a fact that Jesus was crucified on a Friday? So Good Friday, doesn't even make any sense. Why is it called 'Good Friday?' And why can't we eat any meat on Good Friday? My wife was embarrassed, she went to the grocery store on Friday, and bought a bunch of fish sticks, just because we wanted fish sticks. She was like, 'oh man, people are going to think that I'm trying to celebrate a Catholic holiday for with Good Friday. They're going to think I'm Catholic because I'm buying all of this fish.' Even to this day, any steakhouse you go to, what's the soup of the day on Friday? Clam chowder. That's why I love Friday's because I love clam chowder.

Some of this stuff, Good Friday? Not in scripture. Meatless Friday, not in scripture. Lent, not in scripture. Ash Wednesday, not in scripture. Fat Tuesday, Blue Monday? That's a fast Dominoes song. Anyway, a lot of this stuff is just fabricated, it doesn't have any basis in reality. So, the last thing I want you to see, because we're talking about the resurrection today, a really important subject. It is literally the Gospel. It's literally the foundation of our salvation. What do we believe when we get saved? That if thou shall confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. I mean, that's what it's all about. That's what salvation's about.

Not only that, there's one last thing we can learn from the resurrection. Look at Romans 6. Says in verse 1, 'What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound. God forbid.' The reason he says this, because he just finished talking about this for the last three chapters how basically we're saved totally by faith. Not by our works, not by any work that we do. So, then whenever you preach the Gospel, have you ever had people say that to you, where you tell people, 'Hey, all we have to do is believe in Jesus to be saved, whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.' And then here's what they say, 'What do you mean, just do whatever you want, then?' I mean, that's what people will say, because you're like 'Well, all you have to do is believe.' 'Oh, so we just do whatever we want.' Now here's the thing. Paul explains in chapter 5 that if you do whatever you want, you will still be saved. Where sin abounds, grace much more abounds. But he says, 'should we do that? Should we? God forbid.'

That's like saying, 'My wife and I, we swore an oath, 'til death do us part, and we meant that. I might as well just treat my wife however, because she's going to stay married to me no matter what I do. I mean, my wife is never going to divorce me. Might as well treat her like garbage, right? And look, she knows I'm never going to divorce her. I might as well come home for dinner, and say 'Honey, what's for dinner' and she just hands me a hungry man frozen dinner, and just circles the instructions on the back with the microwave with a sharpie. Here you go, I'm going to get back to my soap opera now, whatever.' Is that how my wife is going to act? Is my wife secure in her relationship? I will never divorce my wife, no matter what. But what about thi- Nope. What about- Nope. I will never divorce my wife, period. For any reason. For better, for worse. And she feels the same way, but does that mean that we don't love each other? Does that mean that we're not going to treat each other well?

Jesus said, if you love me, heed my commandments. So, should we continue in sin that grace may abound? No. Because number one, if I treat my wife like garbage, guess what, we're both going to be miserable. If she treats me like garbage, we're both going to be miserable. If children treat their parents badly, and don't obey their parents, children's lives are going to be miserable. They're going to get the belt, they're going to get a spanking. But, wait a minute, does that mean that they're not in the family? Look, we are children of God, we will be in that family. If we continue in sin, grace will abound, but shall we? God forbid. He says, 'How shall we who are dead to sin live any longer therein.'

Verse 3, 'Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death, therefore, we are buried with him by baptism into death. That like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also will' automatically walk an innocent life if we're really saved. Is that what it says? It says 'even so we also' what? 'Should walk in newness of life.' It's saying, look, not only does baptism symbolize the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, it also symbolizes that just like Christ arose and He was changed, we should get baptized, which is a picture. I mean, when you're in the water, it's a picture of him on the cross, when you are under the water it's a picture of when he was buried, when you come out of the water, it's a picture of his resurrection. He says, 'just like we've been buried with him in baptism, we should walk with him in newness of life.'

That's why baptism is a great first step of obedience after you get saved. You get saved, then you get baptized, and here's what your saying when you get baptized. 'I want to walk in newness of life. I want to bury the old Steven Anderson. I want to be the new man.' Because look what it says in the next verse. Verse 5 says this, 'For, if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.' What's likeness? It's something that's similar. We're going to live a life similar to His resurrection in that our life is going to be changed. Now, what if a person doesn't get baptized? Their life's probably not going to change. Why? Because baptism is such and easy step to take. If they can't even get dunked underwater, how are they going to do all of the hard things in the Christian life? Who would say here, 'I've been baptized, and it was really hard. I mean, it was so hard.' Who hear will say 'I was baptized and it was easy?' Yeah, exactly. That's the point, it's just an easy thing. It doesn't save you, because look, Jesus got baptized. Did Jesus need to be saved? Did Jesus wash away his sins? He didn't have any sins.

Jesus was baptized as an example unto us, and we're following in his footsteps to symbolize the likeness of his resurrection. It's a picture, it's a symbol. It's not literal, it's symbolic. Being dunked underwater is symbolic of being buried and rising again. He says, verse 6, 'Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we shall not serve sin. That's what we're picturing when we get baptized. Number one, we're picturing the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, and then we're also picturing the death, burial and resurrection of the old man into the new man, you know. Now, the old man stays with us, unfortunately, our entire life. So, we're going to go back and forth between doing right and wrong. None of us are perfect, right. We all sin, we all do wrong. But at least getting baptized shows a willingness to do right.

A lot of people will say, 'we have to be willing to do right to get saved.' No no no, you just have to believe to be saved. But baptism is saying, you know what, I'm not just trying to escape Hell. You get saved, why? To escape Hell, you believe on Christ, you call out to him to save you. Baptism says I'm not just trying to escape Hell, I'm also trying to walk in newness of life. I also want to live differently, I want to change. That's the power of resurrection, my friend. By the way, that's why we don't sprinkle. This isn't a burial. The last time I was at a burial, they didn't just sprinkle dirt on the body, and just call it good. Just walk up, and sprinkle some dirt on him, and it's like, 'he's buried.' That's going to stink. That's going to be infested with critters. Then, pouring. Okay, let's just pour some dirt on the body. No, a burial, you're surrounded by earth. You are in the earth, you're buried in dirt. Well, that's what baptism is, you go underwater. And by the way, the Bible says, that to be baptized, there's one thing that has to happen first. 'If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest.'

Let me ask you this, does a baby believe in Christ? A baby doesn't even know- I mean, a baby discovers it's hand. That's a milestone. If you read books about rearing babies, it'll tell you, 'here's a milestone, they discovered their hand.' And their fat, they'll just lay there and just, 'Wow. You know, this is really cool' They don't know who Jesus is. They're innocent. If they die they go to Heaven because they don't even sin, they're totally innocent. They don't even know right from wrong. They haven't even heard the laws of God. Can't even comprehend that which is good and evil at that point. But what we see is that a believer, after they get saved, should be baptized as a symbol of 'Hey, let's walk in newness of life.'

What's the moral, what's the sermon about today? Get everything you believe from this book, number one. Number two, understand the importance of the resurrection today, bodily resurrection. It is salvation. You quitting drinking is not salvation. You joining a church is not salvation. You getting baptized is not salvation. You moved out from your girlfriend that you were fornicating with is not salvation. Believing on Christ. Believing in the death, burial, and resurrection, that is salvation. That is the Gospel. And lastly this; the resurrection teaches us that we should be changed. Not automatically going to be changed. We've got to take some steps to change. What's the first step? Getting baptized. What's the next step? Going to church, reading our Bible, praying. And, you know what? It takes a lifetime to grow in the Lord, we're never going to be perfect, but let's keep growing. Let's keep doing better, let's keep trying to follow in the footsteps of Christ to the best of our ability. And we're going to fail, but we need to just keep getting back up and trying to walk in newness of life.

Now let me say this. If you're here today, we're going to be baptizing people today after the service this morning. If you're here today, and you've never been baptized since after you believed on Christ, since after you got saved, you need to get baptized today. And, again, nobody's going to force you to do it. It's something that you have to decide to do. It's your decision, but God commands you to be baptized. So, if you've never been baptized after. You say, 'Well, I got baptized as a baby.' You took a bath. That's it, that's what happened. Well, I got baptized ten years ago, but I got saved two years ago. You took a bath ten years ago, you need to be baptized after you get saved, and here's the thing, it's up to you. We've got all the change of clothes, we've got the towels, we've got the water. What doth hinder you to be baptized? Nothing.

It's up to you my friend, but let me tell you something, when you put off obedience to God, and you put it off, and you put it off, and years and years and years go by, and you wonder why your life doesn't change. God's waiting for you to obey Him. He says if you can't be faithful in that which is least, the little thing, you're not going to be faithful in the big thing. And, I know you want your Aunt Pludy to fly in from Virginia, and you've got family that needs to come in from Europe for your baptism, and you need to bring in a photo crew, and you need to bring in... Look, that's not what baptism's about. The Phillipian jailer got baptized in the middle of the night. It's just about obeying Christ. It's not about putting on 'oh, man. We've got to put out engraved invitations.' Just get baptized today. Just get dunked underwater, and be done with it. Let bow our heads and have a word of prayer.

Father we thank you so much for your word, Lord. We thank you for just a way to separate fact from fiction, because if we didn't have the Bible, we would just be totally clueless on what is true and what is false, but thank you for letting us use the Bible as a source of all truth to cut through all the dis-info, and figure out what's true and what's false, Lord. Lord, there are false prophet's today, going to people's doors, telling lies. Telling a fiction about the resurrection, that it was a spirit leaving a body. Lord, help the glorious gospel of the bodily resurrection to go forth today. In every church in America, Lord, every Bible-believing church, all Christians of the world today that are true believers in the gospel. I pray that they would preach the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, both in the Church house, and door to door, and at family gatherings. Lord, help it not to just be an Easter Bunny egg-fest. Help us to preach the word of God today. And in Jesus' name we pray, Amen.

All right, the bell's ringing, which means we broke our record. What's, how many do we have? Wow. So our old record was 111 for a Sunday morning, we hit 118, which means we have ice cream after the service for everybody. So stick around for ice cream, stick around for the baptisms. If you've not been baptized, come approach me, or approach someone else in the church and say, 'Hey, I'd like to be baptized today' and let's sing one quick song before we're dismissed.