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"MAKE IT
AS SECURE AS YOU CAN" #1
BEATING GOD WITH RED WAX
I heard a story once about a
wealthy woman who had built up, over a lifetime, a healthy paranoia regarding
just about everything. Someone for sure was out to get her and steal her
millions. When she died, the attorneys who looked through her will and
testament discovered some incredible stipulations and codicils regarding
her burial. She wanted one of those triple-layer, locked, hermetically
sealed, encrypted, encoded, unbreakable caskets. Weather-proof. Earthquake-proof.
Shock-proof. Ghost-proof.
What's more, the directions made clear that once the casket was in the
ground, there should be concrete poured all around. Thick concrete. And
a huge slab above-ground as well. For whatever reason, this woman wanted
an impenetrable fortress so that she could truly rest in peace.
Okay . . . so the directions were followed to the letter. The triple locks,
the concrete, everything. So the story goes, a number of years later,
someone went out there to check. Lo and behold true story the concrete
slab was completely split in two; there was a fissure there going right
down to the coffin. What had happened? The tiniest of tree seeds had lodged
in a little crack down below; as the years went by, it had somehow survived
and thrived. And as it grew, and eventually poked its head out of the
ground and drank in water and sunshine, it finally expanded to the point
that it easily split the concrete defenses of this long-dead person.
Well, friend, I don't tell that story to give you a sense of disquiet
about your own hereafter. But I know that many of us who are Christians,
and who claim the promises in the Bible regarding the Resurrection, have
watched with tears in our eyes as someone we loved was laid to rest. The
host of our Sunday radio broadcast, Pastor Morris Venden, tells how he
was watching his own dad being buried. And the two workers at the cemetery
put all the dirt in place. And there was concrete. Maybe even a couple
of iron bars that spanned the coffin. And he said to a friend, "I
wonder if any of this STUFF will be a problem on Resurrection morning?
Will it slow Jesus down?" Knowing, of course, that it wouldn't.
But you know, this leads us to consider a Bible passage that might be
worth an entire week of study. In the book of Matthew, the next to last
chapter, 27, there's a death in the family. The deceased person's name?
Jesus Christ. In just one horrific afternoon, He died by legal execution,
crucified on a cross. Officials were amazed that after just a few hours,
He was already certified as dead. A Roman soldier even stuck a spear in
His side to make sure. I mean, Jesus was DEAD.
Well, as you may know, a wealthy Jew named Joseph of Arimathea had already
gotten permission from Pontius Pilate to bury Jesus in his own private
sepulcher or tomb. But the very next day this would be Saturday now
the priests and Pharisees who had engineered the crucifixion of their
enemy, came to Pilate too. Here's Matthew 27:63:
"Sir, they said, we remember that while
He was still alive that deceiver said, "After three days I will rise
again." So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the
third day. Otherwise, His disciples may come and steal the body and tell
the people that He has been raised from the dead. This last deception
will be worse than the first.'"
So these enemies had two great
objectives. First, they wanted Jesus dead. That they had accomplished.
But secondly, it was imperative that they KEEP Him dead . . . especially
for those first three days. Jesus Himself had said, back in chapter 16,
that He WOULD be raised to life on the third day. Now, the Pharisees might
have feared that the disciples of Jesus would try to fake something: steal
the body and then claim He was resurrected. Or, remembering the recent
Lazarus miracle, their greater fear probably was that He would indeed
emerge from that tomb alive. And so they asked Pilate for a koust dia
or Roman guard to be posted.
All right. Now here come ten of the more amusing words in all the Bible.
Pilate, who's thoroughly disgusted over this whole business, and angry
at himself for already giving in to these people once, lets them have
their way. But notice his answer, recorded in verse 65:
"Take a guard,' Pilate answered."
And now the great ten words: "Go, make the tomb as secure as you
know how."
So Pilate's not excited about
it, but he gives them a dismissive wave. "Go for it," he says.
"Do your thing. If you want the tomb guarded, then knock yourselves
out."
Now friend, why is this little political moment so filled with poignant
humor, almost? Bear in mind what happened Sunday morning. Ironically,
the Bible doesn't give us a lot of color or many details. But there was
an earthquake early that morning. Heavenly angels came down and, almost
like flicking a bread crumb off the table, rolled that huge, unmovable
stone out of the way. Was there a great heavenly trumpet blast? Did a
contingent of 25,000 angels invade that lonely hillside? Well, I don't
know all those things. But I do know this: it's a fact that Jesus Christ
went from death to life, and with the greatest of ease, He walked out
of that tomb and began the Christian Church.
Now, again, for just a moment focus on what Pontius Pilate and the Roman
guards and the Pharisees and priests had to work with. Here's verse 66
as rendered in the expanded Clear Word paraphrase:
"So the priests went to the gravesite to
make sure the entrance to the tomb was closed. They poured some hot wax
where the edge of the stone touched the tomb to seal it with the Roman
Seal so no one would dare roll it away. They told the guards to stay alert
because they could expect grave robbers to come during the night to steal
the body."
Here's another description,
this one coming from 19th-century Bible scholar E. G. White:
"A great stone had been placed before the opening. Across this stone
they placed cords, securing the ends to the solid rock, and sealing them
with the Roman seal. The stone could not be moved without breaking the
seal. A guard of one hundred soldiers was then stationed around the sepulcher
to prevent it from being tampered with."
If you could envision this as
a chessboard, or maybe as a battlefield, what would the two opposing armies
have? On Pontius Pilate's side . . . actually, let's put it this way:
on Lucifer's side. Because the devil was certainly the most interested
party in keeping the dead body of his ancient enemy safely behind that
huge rock. But Lucifer has exactly that: one huge rock. And a hundred
soldiers. I suppose they have swords and maybe a few spears and their
brass shields. And those funny hats you see in all the Cecil B. DeMille
movies. And in addition, they have a bit of red wax. Now, THERE'S a powerful
defensive system. A bit of red Roman wax.
What is on the other side of the battlefield? What does God have? Well,
He has 50 or 60 trillion angels He can send. He has the kind of trumpet
which really CAN awaken the dead. He's got the power to lift a finger
and cause a massive 9.0 Richter-Scale earthquake which doesn't just roll
the stone away, it turns mountains upside-down. What's more, He's got
the power to speak but a single word either in a thunder or a whisper
and dead men come back to life. Whole planets spring into existence.
Vast populations can be created or RE-created by a single syllable.
And poor Pontius Pilate says to the soldiers, "Go for it. Make the
tomb as secure as you can."
Here's the point for us to consider. Friend, Satan may figure he's got
you in his grasp. He's put an army around you. He's built up a whole fort
of obstacles to keep God out of your backyard: temptations, trials, discouragement,
money, problems, bad health. And he says to the imps who serve him: "Go,
make our fort as secure as you can. I don't want anything or anybody to
penetrate the wall we've built up around Mr. X there. Or Miss Y. Pile
up all the red wax you've got because THIS victim, THIS captured pawn,
is really important to me."
And yet the quiet testimony of Matthew chapter 28, and Mark chapter 16,
and Luke chapter 24, and John chapter 21 is that when God decides to invade
this planet on behalf of any person He loves either His own Son, or
one of His Son's followers here in the year 2002 He's able to sweep
through all of Lucifer's defenses in approximately a second-and-a-half.
And that's on a slow day.
We're so used to thinking that death itself is a sure end, a final, forever
kind of defeat. Someone in the grave is forever beyond our reach. And
the Bible DOES describe death as an enemy: one more threatening than the
red wax shipped in direct from Caesar's palace. But friend, when God clears
His throat and says to you, or to your departed spouse, or to that little
boy you buried last week: "Wake up! It's time to wake up!"
it doesn't matter how many fences and barbed-wire barricades and orange
cones Satan has set up. "Wake up" is exactly what that person
does.
Maybe it's time for you and me to wake up too . . . and choose which army
we'd like to be in.
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