 The recording is going to start. Samuel, thank you for your ad-regio note on the chat. I'm just waiting for the recording to start. Okay, recording started. All right, welcome back everybody. So just to quickly review, we are talking about the resurrection of Jesus. And we have been just presenting, you know, our highlighting certain points that we could use, you know, as a defense to the resurrection of Christ. And so what we've covered so far is we've mentioned the fact that there was the Roman seal that had to be broken for the body to come out of the tomb. The fact that there was the empty tomb right there in the city of Jerusalem. Right. So for example, if the body was buried, you know, let's say they took the body down from the cross. And they transported it, you know, somewhere far, far away about 200 miles or 300 miles far away where people couldn't go and see. And then they kept the body there for two nights. And then on the third day they came back with a story to Jerusalem saying, hey, we kept the body there for two nights. And then the body just disappeared. He's risen from the dead. Well, there's no way people can verify it. But that was not the case. The body was right there in the tomb of a man whom most people knew. It was in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. So it was right there, buried right there. And, you know, it happened before the eyes of all the people. So it wasn't done somewhere in secret, but it was right in front of them. So that is a strong evidence to say that this could not have been manufactured, conspired by people. No, it was done right in Jerusalem itself. The body was buried right there. The third thing they're saying is, look, there was a big stone that was there. There had to be moved. It's not physically or practically possible for anybody to sneak behind the guards and move this large stone. And try to steal his body away in some way. That is not a possibility. There were soldiers. This was a big stone. Two of the disciples or three of the women who couldn't get to do this. Not possible. Let's move a little quickly. Number four, a fourth case, a fourth point that we would present in defense would be the Roman guards. They say, look, you've got about 12 soldiers there in front. I mean, even if you had one soldier, that man was a trained soldier. He would not leave his post unless something really drastic had happened. Now you've got a battalion of soldiers. You've got at least 12 of them there. And these are trained soldiers. They're not going to run away from there without a valid reason. Surely the disciples of Jesus could not have scared these Roman guards away from their responsibility of guarding the tomb. No one, practically speaking, no one could have moved these guards away. So there had to have something very big happen to have caused these soldiers to run in fear from their post. And they ran to the Jews, the high priests, and say, hey, we failed. Something happened, which we couldn't control. So this would be another point. There had to have something happen that was bigger than, more powerful than these trained armed Roman soldiers that caused the tombstone to be pushed open. That the Roman seal to be broken, the tombstone to be pushed open, the body to come out humanly, not possible. So the only option is there had to be the work of God that overpowered these soldiers. Caused the Roman seal to be broken, the stone to be moved, the body to come out disappear. And when the soldiers realized what had happened, they were afraid, of course, because their lives were at stake now. And they went to the priests, trying to find out what to do. Fact number four. Number five is grave clothes were left behind, which is very interesting. Because imagine if you or I, one of the disciples somehow got past the soldiers, maybe the soldiers were drugged. They were heavily drugged and they were just knocked out. So all of them, you can just imagine the scene. Twelve strong soldiers, so drugged, they're lying flat, lifeless in front of the tomb. And you and I as disciples of Jesus, maybe five or six of us got together. Or, you know, how many of our people were needed to push open the heavy stone and we managed to do it. And we wanted to take the body out. Would we have taken the time to unwrap the body from its clothes now by this time? Depending on when this happened, the grave cloths with which the body was wrapped may have solidified to some extent. It would have hardened because spices had been put and all of that. So would we have, you know, and also the very fact that the grave cloths were left like that, like a cocoon is interesting. Or would we have taken the time to try to pull this off of the body? Just depending on, let's say if it was two days later that we did this, we managed to feed the Roman soldiers some heavy drug, drug food, knock them all out at night. And we managed to sneak in and move open the door. Would we have taken the time and the effort to remove the grave cloths of the body? And also to wrap the fish cloth, fold it nicely, keep it. You know, make sure everything is nice and then sneak out for the body. Or what would we have done? Would we have said, let's take the body and run, grave cloths and everything. Let's leave the place as soon as we can. Just logically speaking, it's very likely that if you and I were doing this, whatever this thing is, if you and I were doing it, we would have moved the stone as subtly as possible. Taken the body of Jesus with the cloths, everything possible, leave as quickly as possible, go. We are not going to be spending any time unnecessarily inside the tomb to remove the cloth, grave cloths, to fold the face cloth and keep it nicely there. No. So that's another interesting thing. Why would anybody leave the grave cloths behind if they came to steal the body? Why would they fold his face cloth and keep it nicely where it's supposed to be, where the head was supposed to be? Why would anybody do that? So that is another thing to think about. I see, let me see there. Charles, you have some thoughts to share? Yes. You know, it continues to make me move in our and think more deeply about Christ because this Jesus, according to some of the videos that we had and those that we are talking, was crucified when he was located. That's what I had. And now he leaves the tomb and leaves the clothes there, but he is wearing clothes. So that really makes him so unique. He's so unique in a way that even when he leaves the tomb, the clothes that the human being had put, he does not go with them, but he is in clothes when he appears to people, even to Mary Magadrin because the Bible would have put it clear that he was naked. But the Bible doesn't say it. That means he had clothes. So it's really awesome. It's thrilling and it's like it takes me and the unfun for me. It's like, okay, Jesus, it's you now helping me to digest this. That's what I was thinking while you were talking about the clothes being folded and leaving them there. And I was like, God, you are so special. Thank you. Amen. Thank you for sharing. So let's go back to our, thank you for sharing, Charles, our defense. So that's another point that you and I will put forward. Say, hey, just thinking logically, why would somebody take the time to do this? We would take everything and leave as quickly as possible. Act number six or, you know, the point or case number six that you and I would present in a courtroom is imagine, imagine there was an investigation happening. 40 days, you know, let's say for 40 days we had crime scene investigation taking place by the Romans, the Jews, the people in Jerusalem, they're all investigating doing that thorough investigation. And then we say, okay, now we're going to have the hearing on this case, the disappearance of the body of Jesus. And so the judge says, is that anyone in the last 40 days who has actually seen Jesus, anyone, and we bring in 500 people. He marks the men and they give their testimony, 500, not five people, not 50 people, 500 eyewitnesses. So Mary Magdalene says, I was the first one. I saw him in the garden. I was about to hug him and he told me don't because he had to go up to the father. Then there is, you know, the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, I said, hey, we walked with him for almost two hours. He was talking to us. He came and he sat down with us. This was not some imagination. We were going to eat food together. Then there is, there are all the 12 disciples and each one of them says, we saw him. He came in through the door and Thomas says, hey, he showed me his hands. He told me to touch him. I wasn't dreaming. I saw him. I was going to put my hand in his side and his finger. Then the disciples said, well, it didn't happen just that time. We were went fishing and he came and he told us to come and eat. And he was right there. He sat down with us and Peter says, hey, he spoke to me. He had a conversation with me. He told me, you know, feed my sheep. And like this, you've got 500 people giving testimony. In today's court of law, if you had five people, five eyewitnesses, that's substantial. If you had 50, that would be huge. If you had 500 eyewitnesses case closed and the Bible saying there were 500 people who saw the Christ, eyewitnesses who could be brought in to the court, courtroom to present their testimony before the judge. Is there anybody who has any evidence that his body was stolen? No evidence. Roman soldiers. What happened that night? Well, actually the priest told us to create a story saying that his body was stolen. But this is what happened. We were all there. There was a huge earthquake. There was something that overpowered us and there was no human around. The stone moved out of its place. And when we came to ourselves, you went in. The body was not there. That's all we know. Okay. Did anybody bribe you? No. Did anybody give you any drugs? No. Okay. So that's the hearing on the disappearance of the body of Christ. You've got 500 eyewitnesses on one side, not a single soul on the other side who saw his body stolen, who has any evidence that his body was taken out by human beings or that it was a wrong tomb in which his body was placed. Joseph or Mithya, did it was your tomb used? Yes. Were you there when they put it in? Yes. So we know it's not a wrong tomb. It's your tomb. So in a court of law where there's any normal proceedings to establish or to disprove the disappearance of the body of Christ, the number of evidence, the testimony of these 500 witnesses would outweigh anything else because there's no other contrary evidence to the disappearance of the body of Christ. So that's huge. If you think about it, 500 witnesses who could say his body disappeared. Now, the other very interesting thing is this. Sometime after or in the 40 days from the resurrection of Christ, we find that there were others who were previously hostile to Christ. That means they were against Christ, who changed their mind about Jesus Christ. The most important would be the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, which took place some years after his resurrection. But let's just hold Saul for a moment and let's go to the family of Christ. We'll come back to Saul, but the family of Jesus. So what do we know about the family of Jesus? We know that his brothers, his brothers, they did not believe in him. This is in John chapter seven, verses one to five. The own brothers of Jesus did not believe in Jesus during his earthly ministry. They were skeptical because they said, man, he's just deceiving the masses. This was our brother and we grew up together and we did all these things together. And here he is out there deceiving the masses. We are not going to believe him. They didn't believe in him. And yet after the resurrection, 50 days after the resurrection, what do we find? Here they are 40 to 50 days after the resurrection, marry the mother of Jesus with his brothers. They're all continuing in prayer in the upper room. So you can say, here were the brothers of Jesus. They didn't believe in him during his earthly ministry. They saw him crucified. They must be wondering, ah, finally he got what he deserved. He was deceiving all the people and they got him. 40 days later, they're all sitting in prayer with the disciples of Jesus. Wait a minute. These are the same brothers who did not believe in him. And here they're sitting in the upper room praying. The only thing that happened after the crucifixion and during these 40 days is his resurrection. What changed the mind of these brothers? It had to be his resurrection. It had to be his resurrection. These brothers who didn't believe the miracles, they didn't believe his sermons. They didn't believe anything that he did in his earthly ministry. They saw him crucified. The next thing after his crucifixion was his resurrection. Something happened to change their minds. And this is within that 40 day period. 40-50 days, you know, they're sitting there just before the day of Pentecost. So within that 40-50 day period, they've changed their minds. And the only thing that happened is Christ rose from the dead. So that is again a testimony. And of course, a big testimony is that of the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, which happened approximately eight to nine years after Pentecost. So you have Pentecost happening. The church is growing. Now Saul was there. Saul was a Pharisee. He must have been studying at this time probably, you know, working towards his PhD, studying at the Gamelil. And he had heard about Jesus of Nazareth. He must have been really following. This man, I'm sure he's going to cause a lot of problems. He must have been really upset. And then he saw Jesus get crucified. He said, well, he deserved it. At least it's going to come to an end. All this craziness that he's been doing and saying. So Saul of Tarsus has been there watching all this from a distance. He's working on his PhD, studying under Gamelil. And but after his death, things get even more intense because it's not just one Jesus preaching. Now it's like the apostles are preaching. Thousands are getting saved. Thousands are being saved in Jerusalem. And Saul is watching what's going on. He finally gets, he graduates, he gets his PhD. And he says, my first assignment after my me becoming a Pharisee is I'm going to wipe out this Jesus of Nazareth. So you can imagine a young man just graduated from the school of Gamelil, a point made to become a Pharisee. He's been watching all this happening for the last 10 years or so. And he says, my first assignment as a Pharisee is I'm going to help today's. And I'm going to help my faith, the faith of our, my, you know, the father's by putting an end to this Jesus of Nazareth. So he gets, you know, letters of approval from the Pharisees, from the high priest saying, look, give me permission that if I find anybody believing in Jesus, this Jesus of Nazareth, I'm going to either put them in prison or get them stoned. And he begins his mission. He gets Stephen stoned. He's the one standing there and saying, yeah, I'm authorizing the stoning of Stephen. This person who is preaching Jesus. And then he's on his way to Damascus. Why, because he's heard, hey, people out there, they've, they've, it's gone past Jerusalem. I mean, this thing is getting out of hand. It's gone into Damascus. I'm going to wrap this up in Damascus, put an end to it. So he's on his way to Damascus. But before he reaches Damascus, something happens. And this is eight years after the resurrection. Something changes. Very powerful. Saul meets Jesus and the man who had taken up, taken it up as his life's mission. This young man must have been about, you know, it takes about 30 years to get his to become a Pharisee. So it must have been around that age. But a young man, so determined to wipe out this new movement of Jesus of Nazareth, to suddenly say, hey, I'm preaching Jesus. This Jesus is the Messiah. What could have caused it? What could have caused it? The only thing is he encountered Christ, the risen Christ, the resurrected Christ. That was the only thing. And Saul of Tarsus was so transformed in his life that God used that one man to reach the entire region around the Mediterranean with the Gospel. This one man did more for the advancement of the Gospel in that first century than any other known person. He traveled to more than 50 major cities in his day. He covered about 10,000 miles on road, about 3,000 miles on sea. He rode much of the New Testament. He preached to kings, leaders, even for testimony before the Roman Emperor. This was the very man who had taken up as his last mission to wipe out Jesus of Nazareth. And the only thing that changed his life was an encounter with the resurrected Christ. So that stands, and this happened eight years after. That means Jesus was well and alive eight years later. So this stands as a powerful testimony to the resurrection of Christ. And last two points that we will say is this. Number seven, well, we all know that the 12 disciples of Jesus, the 12 apostles from the day of Pentecost, they went and they preached the resurrected Christ. They had no other incentive than to do this because they believed it. Nobody was paying the money to be part of this mission. Nobody enlisted them as soldiers in some sort of an army. There was no organization. There was no monetary incentive. There was no earthly incentive to do what they did. See today, when you look at, say, maybe the people who commit jihad than others, there are a lot of incentives. Somebody's paying them, somebody's providing resources. There is an organization you can join. And then you know all of that. There is a lot of training that can be given to you and it's a lot of things that can persuade people. But these 12 men had nothing, zero incentive. Other than they saw the risen Christ and he gave them his word, go and make disciples of all nations and the Holy Spirit will empower you. It's very different from those who do commit jihad today or those, you know, whether it's the ISIS or the IS or whatever, you know, you have all kinds of groups today are doing things, but they have incentives behind what's happening. There is an organization backing. There's money flowing. There is all kinds of training coming in and weapons being given and all those things are being done. These people had zero, nothing. The only thing that motivated these 12 disciples from the day of Pentecost was they saw the risen Christ and he said, go make disciples and power you by the Holy Spirit. And for these 12 ordinary men who had nothing with them, nothing. Jesus didn't leave them, you know, look, I'm giving you so much money. I have registered this organization and I have formed this great entity. Now I just want you to run it. Nothing. There's zero. Nothing. It only given them commission and they took it up and it spread and they died for that, which they believed. We can only say the thing that kept them was the fact that they knew beyond a doubt Christ had been raised from the dead. They had seen him that changed them. It's very interesting that these 12 men right after the crucifixion were unbelievers. They didn't believe the Christ had been risen from the dead. You know that and that Jesus had to, you know, if you read the account in Mark and also in Luke, he had to deal with their unbelief. Who are we talking about? We're talking about these 12 people. That means these 12 men after the crucifixion were unbelievers. They didn't believe Christ would rise from the dead. They didn't. You know, if you look at Mark, I'm just just reading a passage here. Mark 16, verse 13, it says, you know, Mark 16, 13 and 14. It says when, you know, they, when they told the disciples, two of them after they had the encounter with Jesus, they told the disciples, they did not believe them. And verse 14, Mark 16, 14, Jesus rebuked their unbelief because they did not believe. So these 12 men were actually people who didn't believe. Now, how could these men who didn't believe become believers and with no incentive give their lives for what they believed? It's because they saw the risen Christ. They saw him and therefore they could not deny it. They gave their lives for it. All of them except John were martyred and John was, John the beloved was banished to the Isle of Patmos where he wrote the book of Revelation and eventually died. But these men gave their lives for Christ. Last point is that today lives are transformed and miracles still happen in his name. So today when you and I use the name of Jesus, we see miracles. We see demons trembling. We see evil spirits cast out. We see things happen. We see lives changed. How is that possible? A dead man can't do it. A dead man, the name of a dead man can't drive out demons. It's because the one whose name you're using and calling is truly alive. So if we present, we can present these eight facts to as our defense to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Any questions, any thoughts here? Any, does it, does it convince if you are sitting as a court, you know, a Supreme Court judge in Jerusalem? And, you know, one of your classmates presented these eight points in defense. Would you feel convinced? Any questions? All right, let me read what Charles wrote. Number seven, the dynamism, the 12 given penises. Yes, yes. The power of the Holy Spirit. Yes. Yeah. So, you know, we can actually argue very, I'm not using what argue, but we can present our case very strongly, you know, using these eight points and say, hey, look, you know, can you just prove any of these? And some of these are very simple, which, which are like, look, it's pretty obvious. I mean, no arguments about this. Just think about it, you know, and that's our defense. Okay. Any questions? All right, everybody's very quiet. I don't know. Are you already thinking about it or they're not convinced? Are you are convinced? I see a few comments. Okay. Anyway, I am assuming you're convinced. And if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. We can talk about it. Okay. All right. Okay. It's unanimous decision. Okay. Fine. So, all right. So these are convincing reasons. And, you know, when somebody asks, you know, and if they're willing to listen, you can share these reasons as to why we can say just by, you know, based on what actually happened and thinking very simply, very logically, these are reasons why we would, we can say with absolute confidence that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, right? Taking it, you know, you can look at all of these things. I want to just, I know we have only 10 more minutes before the class, but I'll just kind of introduce our next topic and we will pick this up next week. The next topic that we want to address is on, it's a very simple topic, but yet it's very important. It's about the fact that there is salvation in Jesus Christ. But it's not just, we're not just saying salvation is there in Jesus, but we need to say clearly what the Bible says, which is that Jesus is the only way to salvation, right? So we, you know, we, in speaking about the uniqueness of Christ in some way, we have already answered this question. But we need, you know, just for the sake of completeness, we need to state this. And the reason is, because like I mentioned at the very beginning, there's been this ambivalence among certain Christian leaders. And there's this unwillingness to come out and say that Jesus is the only way to salvation. So for whatever reason, you know, so that's one part of the problem. And the other part of the problem is that there are some Christian leaders who deny that salvation is only in Jesus Christ. They believe, you know, so this popular thing is called, I wouldn't say it's popular, but this moment is called universalism. Everybody's saved. And whatever, you know, you do what you want, you believe how you want, whatever everybody's saved. And sometimes it comes from certain Christian leaders. And that's not, you know, that's not right. It's not biblical. It's not what the Bible says. So why do we say that salvation is only in Jesus Christ? Let me see how much we can cover. And this is very simple, because most of us know this. First, the word of God clearly states this. You look at the scriptures. And the scripture is very clear that salvation is only in Jesus. So I can't say I believe the Bible or I'm a preacher of the Bible and then not saying salvation is only in Jesus because the Bible says, Acts 4-12, there's no salvation in any other. You know, first on five, he who has the son has life. He who does not have the son does not have life. That's plain and simple. There's nothing to argue about that. Secondly, why do we say salvation is only in Jesus because of the uniqueness of Christ, which we went through, right? Only Christ and Christ alone has done certain things, you know, in his incarnation and what he said about himself, in his incarnation, his birth, his life and teaching, his death and resurrection. Nobody else has done this. So there is actually no competing option if you want to put it plainly. Nobody else has done it. There's no competing option. And so Christ is unique. That's why we say salvation is only in Jesus Christ. And lastly, it's this very important point that Christ provides a complete remedy for sin and a promise of relationship with God. Now, we don't find that kind of a promise or an offer anywhere else. Something that says, look, we are all done wrong. And here's one full, complete remedy which will give you, with 100% assurance, a right relationship with God. What we do have is, okay, you know, here are some means by which you can live a better life and hopefully God will accept you. Or here are some means that you could live a better life and maybe you will receive some sort of a higher spiritual standing in your next life or next cycle of life. Different options like that, but nothing that says, look, this is a full, complete remedy for sin. That guarantees you, promises you a right relationship with God and a place eternally with God in heaven. The Bible provides that for us. And it's not based on our works, but it's based on grace, the faith, you know. So, you know, we will talk about Hinduism and Islam the next two lessons, you know, how to represent Christ to Hindu and to Islam to Muslim. And this is the big difference. So even in Islam, they do have the concept of forgiveness of sin, but you're not sure if Allah will forgive you your sin, you'll find out once you're after you die. And that's why in an attempt to get some guarantee, sense of guarantee, people, you know, commit jihad or they try to die as a jihadist. Maybe there's some guarantee there or some higher possibility there. But what's being offered here in Christ is salvation is given to you freely by grace. You indeed receive it by faith because it's been fully provided for. And we can have assurance of forgiveness, assurance of salvation here and now through faith in Christ. Which is again unlike what we have, you know, in other religions or other options on all we've got to just repent and believe in the person of Christ. So three reasons why we say salvation is only in Jesus Christ. The word of God states it. So if I believe the Bible, I need to be in agreement with the Bible. Second, we have discussed the uniqueness of Christ. There's nobody like Christ. There's no competing option. And number three, nobody makes the same offer that is given to us through Christ. This offer of complete remedy for sin and a right relationship with God comes only through Jesus Christ. Okay, so I'm not going into these too much of detail here. Maybe these points are pretty good. Maybe we'll pick up from here and move forward. Next week, we're going to talk about sharing Christ with the Hindu, sharing Christ with the Muslim. So based on our understanding of what we've done so far in Christ, how do we communicate that with a Hindu and a Muslim? It's not an in-depth study of Hinduism in Islam, but to highlight the points of differences and how do we present Christ to them. Okay, so we'll just probably pick up from here. We'll just cover these points here and then go forward. Let's wrap up for today. Let's just take a moment to pray and then we will close. If there are no more questions, any questions? Okay, so let's take a moment to pray and then we will dismiss. Go for a break and we'll join the next class. Can I ask somebody to take a moment to pray with us together and then dismiss us please? Who wants to? Can I pray? Alright Charles, go ahead please. Father God, we thank you that as we began this class, we ask you that you will help us to understand this. Because everything is you who is doing this to bring even the illumination of this information in our hearts and minds so that we can understand it. So that we will be able to even be able to give a defense of our faith. Therefore Lord, continue to educate us so that we shall not be perishing because of lack of knowledge. Lord, now that we are set to study, continue to teach us, that as we go also equip us so that we shall go in depth and learn your word. For in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen, amen. Thank you Charles. Thank you everyone for being on the class today. I will take a quick break and I'll see you in the next class. God bless. Bye now. Thank you, Sri Kumar. Thank you. Thank you. See you soon. Bye now.