The Evidence that Demands a Verdict

Heavenly Father, today we gather not around myth, rumor, or wishful thinking, but around the truth of your word and the power of the risen Christ. As we open the scriptures, we open our hearts. As we examine the evidence of the resurrection, give us minds that are attentive and spirits that are receptive.

Lord, strengthen the faith of those who believe, and draw near to those who still have questions. Remove distraction, doubt, pride, and fear, and let the truth of the empty tomb speak clearly today. Thank you for the cross, thank you for the sacrifice of Jesus, and thank you that the grave could not hold him.

Your word declares in John 11 25, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. So today, remind us that because Christ lives, there is hope stronger than despair, life stronger than death, and grace greater than our sin.

Holy Spirit, move freely in this place. Convict hearts, encourage believers, and draw people to Jesus. And may everything said and done today point not to human wisdom, but to the risen Savior.

We ask all this in the powerful name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. All right, I'm going to ask you to stand again.

For the reading of the scripture for today is 1 Corinthians 15 3-8, and this is what it says. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. That he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the twelve.

Then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

This is the word of God, inspired by God, for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Thank you.

You may be seated. Okay. So, the verses that Randall read, I'm going to review three of those verses.

So, we'll start with verse 17. It says, and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.

If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. Most to be pitied. You know, there are moments in life when everything hinges on one question.

Not a small question, but a defining one. And because of this, we need to know how to look at evidence and how to follow the evidence when we see it. Before ministry, I worked as a detective, as most of you know, and I spent decades investigating cases where everything came down to one thing, what really happened.

So, I'd walk into crime scenes where emotions were high, you know, the stories, they didn't line up, and people were convinced of different versions of the truth. But in that line of work, opinions don't matter. Evidence does.

Not what someone feels happened. Not what someone hopes is true. But what the evidence actually shows.

So, I learned to ask questions like, do the facts line up? Are the witnesses credible? Can they be believed? Is there cooperation? And does the story hold up under pressure? Because at the end of the day, the case doesn't stand on emotion. It stands on evidence. And here's what I discovered.

That when the evidence is strong enough, you don't have to force a conclusion. The truth becomes unavoidable. So, here's an example of how the truth unfolds in a homicide investigation when you simply follow evidence where it leads.

So, bear with me. It's not a real short story, but I'll try to cut to the chase. And this isn't an area or a portion of this presentation where we participate, Kelly.

So, a point to remember is that we need to follow evidence, right? There are two types of evidence. There's direct evidence, which the most common type is eyewitness testimony. And the other type of evidence is circumstantial evidence, which is pretty much everything else.

But, you know, both are important, but something actually needs to be evidence. It needs to be relevant and actually apply before it's something that we consider, before we decide to follow it. So, detectives, just so you know, I mean, there are multiple detectives in the room.

I appreciate your being here. But for those of you who aren't detectives, detectives use a way of thinking about a case, about evidence, and it's called abductive reasoning. And it means when you look at evidence, you look at something, and you weigh all of this evidence, you seek to find the most reasonable explanation for the known facts.

And this has to be based on that evidence, not our feelings or our wishes. So, to the story. So, my detective partner, Kelly Otis, and I, we were called to a double murder in the late night hours of the fall of 1999, some 27 years ago.

Kelly was relatively, we weren't partners for very long at that time. We've known each other for 10 years at that point, but, well, longer than that, 12 years at that point. But we were partnered fairly recently in homicide.

Well, anyway, the case was two Hispanic males were found dead lying on the road near downtown Wichita just off of I-135. They'd obviously been shot, and they had no ID on them. So, right off the bat, two guys laying dead, shot in the middle of the road, and no ID.

This didn't look like it'd be an easy case to solve, so I was really glad that it was his case and not mine at that point. Hours later, during the autopsy, we learned that one of the men was wearing a pair of jeans that had a number stitched in the tag of the waistline, and it was a prisoner number. So, those jeans that he was wearing were a pair of pants that he'd gotten while he was in prison.

Well, that number led us to his name, which led to a positive identification, and, believe it or not, a criminal history of narcotics trafficking. Soon, both men were identified, and it was learned that one was living in Wichita, and the other one lived in Dodge City, Kansas. So, you know, we get a lot of information when a case is new, people trying to help, people calling in, and someone called in and thought maybe this was a cartel hit, that a Mexican cartel operating in western Kansas was pointed at being maybe responsible for this double murder.

And if you know Kelly, what happened next wouldn't surprise you, because he wanted to jump in the car, drive to Dodge City, and confront the cartel right away. And I thought, well, maybe we ought to work on the leads that we got here locally in Wichita before we did that. You know, just follow the evidence, not speculation or theories or tips.

So, at this point in the investigation, we did that, and I promised him that if we run all of the leads out in Wichita, then I'd be happy to make that long drive to Dodge City with him, and we would confront the cartel. Amen, brother. So, having a feeling about something, hearing unsubstantiated ideas sometimes makes it hard to look and see what's right in front of you.

I imagine he felt like we were wasting time, and the cartel may slip away from our sight, and we'd never solve this case at that point if we just wasted too much time following the leads of Wichita. After all, really, truly, a lot of time had passed in just figuring out who these victims were, but we pressed on anyway. First, we found out where one of the murder victims was staying the night before.

It was at a cheap hotel in West Wichita, and this was like before cell phones, right? So, we were able to get their room number and get their phone records from that room and found out that they had made a call to a local man, you know, hours before their bodies were discovered. Well, this local guy, he definitely was not in the cartel, but so we started looking for him, and we're surprised to find out that he was in the county jail. Just so happens, sometime after the bodies were discovered, police were called to his house because of a domestic violence complaint.

He had gotten into a fight with, you know, one of his family members and got booked into jail on a warrant, so he was sitting in the jail. We sent detectives over to pick him up and bring him to talk to us in the detective's section, and he was put in a, you know, an eight-by-eight room handcuffed to a table, and we found out that the detective also got his clothing, and on his shoes was some blood. Well, later we find out that that blood that was on those shoes matched both of those victims, so he ended up making statements, statements that led him to be convicted of both counts of first-degree murder.

No trip to visit the cartel was necessary, and simply following that evidence led to the truth, the truth that was undeniable. So, now, let me ask you something. If we approach the resurrection of Jesus Christ the same way, not just as a religious idea, not just as something that we were taught growing up, but as a case, a real case, because that's what, that's exactly what a man called Lee Strobel did.

You know, he was an investigative journalist, and he took the skills that he used in the newsroom and applied them to one central question. Did Jesus really rise from the dead? Because if he didn't, then Christianity is just a comforting story, but if he did, well, that changes everything, doesn't it? The apostle Paul understood this. In 1 Corinthians, he said, if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless, and so is your faith.

Christianity doesn't ask you to take a blind leap. It invites you to examine the evidence, and that's where the work of Lee Strobel becomes so helpful. As a former investigative journalist, he approached the resurrection like a case, looking at facts, witnesses, and verifiable history, and he organized that case into what we'll call today the four D's of evidence of the resurrection.

Now, Lee Strobel called it the four E's, but I'm changing it to the four D's because I'm Deacon Dana, and I was a detective. So, these are the four. I'm glad you guys are laughing at that.

Number one is the death of Jesus. Now, Lee Strobel called it the execution. Number two is the disappearance of the body, and Lee Strobel called it the empty tomb.

Number three is direct evidence, and Lee Strobel called that eyewitnesses, and number four, Deacon Dana's D's, is diligence of the followers, and Lee Strobel called that emergence of the church, but we're going to walk through each of these together. So, first, death. There was an execution.

Jesus really died, and before there can be a resurrection, there must be a real death, right? We have these steps. Someone has to die before they are resurrected. Jesus was scourged, crucified, and pierced.

The book of John records a critical detail. Chapter 19, verses 33 to 34 says, but when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs, but one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once came out blood and water. That wasn't speculation.

That was eyewitness testimony, and Mark tells us even the Roman authority confirmed it, because in Mark, chapter 15, verses 44 and 45, it says Pilate was surprised to hear that he should have already died, and summoned the centurion, and he asked him whether he was already dead, and when he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the corpse to Joseph. Roman executioners verified the death. Isaiah had foretold it centuries earlier.

In Isaiah 53.5, it says, but he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds, we are healed.

Well, some people have suggested that Jesus fainted, that he survived the cross, but the evidence says otherwise. Roman executioners were professionals. They knew death.

Jesus was scourged, beaten beyond recognition. He was nailed to a cross. He hung there for hours, and then something critical happened.

A Roman soldier pierced his side, and blood and water flowed out. Blood and water. Medical experts say that indicates a collapsed lung and a ruptured heart sac.

In other words, Jesus was unquestionably dead, and this is important, because you don't get a resurrection from a man who merely passed out. Jesus didn't swoon. He died.

So, I'm going to step out of the Bible for just a moment and look at it the way an investigator would. So, what do non-Christian sources say about Jesus? Because this is important, because if it really happened, we shouldn't just see it in Scripture. We should see it echoed in history, and not surprisingly, we do.

A Roman historian named Tacitus, writing in the first century, records that Jesus, called Christus, was executed under Pontius Pilate. Now, understand that Tacitus, he wasn't a Christian, and he was actually hostile toward them, and yet he confirms the crucifixion. A Jewish historian, Josephus, also records that Jesus was condemned to the cross under Pilate.

Again, this is not a follower of Jesus. This is an outside source. Scholars believe there are a number of writings in the Jewish Talmud referring to Jesus.

So, what is the Talmud? Well, the Talmud is the central authoritative collection of ancient rabbinic teachings, laws, traditions, and debates from the foundation of Jewish religious law and ethics. So, this is perhaps the most famous Talmudic passage about Jesus. This is what it says.

It was taught on the day before the Passover, they hang Jesus. A herald went before him for 40 days, proclaiming he will be stoned, because he practiced magic and enticed Israel to go astray. That anyone who knows anything in his favor come forward and plead for him.

But nothing was found in his favor, and they hanged him on the day before the Passover. So, there are other critics that mock Christians for worshiping a man who had been crucified. So, across Roman, Jewish, and Greek sources, you get the same consistent fact.

Jesus was killed. Jesus was crucified. So, let's move on to the next D, the disappearance of the body.

The empty tomb. Jesus's body was gone. So, three days later, something shocking happened.

The tomb was empty, and Luke records that moment, and the angel's declaration, no, records that moment, and they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. And then Luke records the angel's declaration, and as they were frightened, and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you while he was still in Galilee.

So, even the opposition confirmed the tomb was empty, trying to explain it away. So, Matthew 28, verse 12 and 13 says, and when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers and said, tell people his disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep. You know, you don't make up stories about a body that's still there.

You only cover up an empty tomb, and notice, now think about this carefully. If the body of Jesus were still in the tomb, Christianity would have been crushed immediately. All the authorities had to do was produce the body, but they couldn't.

Why? Because the tomb was empty. Even Jesus's enemies acknowledged this. They didn't argue that the tomb was still occupied.

They claimed the disciples stole the body. That admission is powerful. You don't expect to explain away a full tomb.

You only argue about an empty tomb, and here's something else. The first witnesses to the empty tomb were women. Well, I don't hold this view, but in that culture, women's testimony wasn't even considered reliable in court.

If you invented a story back in those days, you would never write it that way. You would never use women as the witnesses that found the empty tomb, unless that's what actually happened. The next D, direct evidence, eyewitnesses.

You know, people saw him alive, and this is where the evidence becomes overwhelming. Paul lays it out clearly in 1 Corinthians 15, 5, and 6, and he appeared to Cephas, and then to the 12. Then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.

In other words, when he says most of them are still alive, he's saying, verify it. Go ask them. The Gospel record, the Gospels record multiple appearances.

John 20 and 19, Jesus appears to the disciples. Luke 24, 13 to 15, on the road to Emmaus. John 20, 26 through 28, to Thomas, who doubted.

And Jesus didn't just appear to one person. He appeared to many. Mary Magdalene, the disciples, two men on the road to Emmaus, over 500 people at one time.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15 that many of those witnesses are still alive. In other words, you go ask them yourself. It wasn't mythology.

It was verifiable testimony. So now think about the disciples. Before the resurrection, they were terrified.

They ran. They hid. But after seeing the risen Christ, they became bold.

They preached in the streets. They faced persecution. They went to their deaths.

People may die for a lie that they think is true, but no one dies for a lie they know is false. Not a single one of them recanted. Why? Because they had seen him.

Even skeptics were transformed. James, the brother of Jesus, was once a doubter. Saul of Tarsus, later Paul the Apostle, a persecutor, turned preacher.

So what changed them? They encountered the risen Christ. That's what changed them. So let me put it in terms I understand as a former detective.

In a real investigation, eyewitnesses matter. But not all eyewitnesses are equal. If I'm working a case and I have one witness, well, that's a start.

If I have two or three and their stories line up independently, now I'm paying attention. If I have dozens, even hundreds of witnesses who saw the same thing at different times, in different settings, and their accounts all hold together under scrutiny, well, that's no longer a weak case. That's a strong case.

And here's something else we look for. We separate witnesses. We ask questions from different angles.

We look for inconsistencies. Because if it's fabricated, it falls apart under pressure. But if it's true, it holds.

Now think about the resurrection. Jesus didn't appear just once in one place to one person. He appeared in different locations at different times to individuals and groups, and even to over 500 people at one time.

This wasn't a single emotional experience for somebody. This was a repeated, consistent, corroborated testimony. And let me tell you what really gets my attention as an investigator.

When witnesses have nothing to gain and everything to lose. In my former line of work, when somebody risks their reputation, their safety, and even their life to stick to their story, well, I paid attention. Because that kind of testimony carries weight.

It has credibility. It rings true. And that's exactly what we see with these disciples.

They didn't get rich. They didn't gain power. They were beaten, imprisoned, and killed.

And not one of them said, we made it up. Why? Because they couldn't deny what they had seen. Now, let's listen to how Paul describes it.

In Acts 10, 40 to 41, he said, God raised him and caused him to be seen by witnesses whom God had already chosen. And after the resurrection, Acts 4, 20, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard. These weren't guesses.

These were eyewitnesses, and their lives prove it. In Acts 5, 41 to 42, it says, they rejoiced because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the name. People don't endure that for something they know is false.

And the final D, the diligence of the apostles, the emergence of the church. You know, the church had exploded into existence. So how do you explain this? A small group of frightened followers suddenly ignites a movement that changes the world.

The early church didn't grow slowly. It exploded. Thousands came to faith and Jerusalem, the very city where Jesus was crucified.

If the resurrection were false, it could have been proven on the spot. But instead, the message spread from Jerusalem to Rome to the ends of the earth. And here we are today still talking about Jesus because it's true.

So what explains that kind of impact? Not a dead teacher, but a living savior. So what will you do with this evidence? At some point, this stops being just an intellectual discussion or a lecture, and it becomes personal. Paul writes in Romans 1, 4, Jesus was declared to be the son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

And because he lives, according to his great mercy, 1 Peter 1, 3 says he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. So the question is not, is there evidence? There's obviously abundant evidence. The question is, what will you do with it? Because the resurrection isn't just something to analyze.

It's something to respond to. If Jesus rose from the dead, then these are the facts. He is who he claimed to be.

Sin has been defeated. Death is not the end. And hope is real.

Again, the question is not, is there evidence? The question is, what will you do with it? So let me say this as plainly as I can. The resurrection of Jesus is not wishful thinking. It's not blind faith.

It's grounded in evidence, historical, credible, and compelling evidence. But evidence alone doesn't save you. It's God's grace by faith that does.

And today you have a choice. Will you keep Jesus at a distance? Or will you trust him as your risen Lord? The evidence is in. The case is clear.

And now the verdict is yours. What will you do with Jesus? If this were just a story, you could ignore it.